



in cL 




George E Weeks 







CaSEHRIGHT DEPOSm 



SEEN IN A MEXICAN 
PLAZA 




(C) Hugo Brehnte, Mexico City. 

Organ Cactus, Frequently Used for Fences and Hedges 



SEEN IN A MEXICAN 
PLAZA 

A Summer* s Idyll of an Idle Summer 



BY 

^^EL GRINGO" 

(GEO.j^F. WEEKS) 



ILLUSTRATED 



&) 



t 



New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Re veil Company 

London, and Edinburgh 



Copjrright, 1918, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



f/s9/ 









New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edmburgh: 75 Princes Street 



i9 






TO 

MY FRIEND 

THAT TYPICAL MEXICAN GENTLEMAN 

TO WHOM I OWE MANY PLEASANT 

HOURS AND MANY VALUED 

COURTESIES AND 

KINDNESSES 



CONTENTS 



IDYLL PAGE 

I. Far-away, Quiet Cuatro Cienegas i i 
II. A Strange Business . . . .16 

III. The Educated Crow that Played 

THE Piano 19 

IV. Why They Thought I was Rude . 23 
V. The Devout Praying Cripple . 28 

VI. Regular Private Beggars on Reg- 
ular. Days 33 

VII. " You May Pay Me Whatever You 

Please " 38 

VIII. Novel Method of Handling Meat 43 
IX. Little Juan Jose Wong and His 

Sister '' Lupe " . . . .46 
X. The Crimean War and the Mex- 
ican Plaza 50 

XI. The Captured Boy Who Found His 

Way Home 58 

XII. Leisurely Manner of Transacting 

Business .67 

7 



8 CONTENTS 

IDYLL PAGE 

XIII. Generosity a National Trait . 71 

XIV. An Open-air Movie Exhibition . 78 
XV. A Late Afternoon Panic in the 

Plaza 84 

XVI. A Child's Faith in Don Porfirio 94 
XVII. The Interesting Process of Man- 
ufacturing Candles ... 99 

XVIII. A Hot Water Bath in a Bottom- 
less Pit 105 

XIX. Tragic Ending of a Tranquil 

Summer 112 

XX. A Peon Woman's Philosophy and 

Ideas of Wealth . . . .116 




ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Organ Cactus, Frequently Used for Fences 
AND Hedges .... Frontispiece 

The Cuatro Cienegas Plaza in Summer . 14 

Packing Adobes on a Burro . . . .20 

Rural Transportation . . . . .20 

The Cuatro Cienegas Plaza in Winter . 30 

The Church 30 

Too Old to Work and so Becomes a Beggar 34 

A Little Mexican Beauty . . . -34 

Bringing in a Load of Herbs . . . .34 

Aged Mexican Indian Types . . . .40 

Road up the Canyon from Cuatro Cienegas 
TO THE Desert 64 

Starting for the Desert . . . .64 

Peon Family at Home 68 

Upper Class Family Group in Patio of Resi- 
dence - . . .68 

Pack Train Carrying Firewood to Town . 86 

GuAYULE Train Coming into Town from the 
Desert 86 

A Mexican Bride * 94 

9 



10 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 

PAGE 



Hauling Vegetable Wax Plants to the Fac- 
tory lOO 

Guayule Rubber Factory at Cuatro Cienegas ioo 

Municipal Building in Cuatro Ciengas . io6 

Picturesque Canyon on Railway from 
MoNCLovA TO Cuatro Cienegas . .106 

Initial letters and tail pieces 'by the author's daughter, 
Mrs. Annie Weeks Hunter 





FAR-AWAY, QUIET CUATRO CIENEGAS 

WAY out on the edge of things in the 
State of "Coahuila and Zaragosa," 
far to the south of the Rio Grande, 
-"^ is the picturesque, thoroughly typ- 
ical little town of Cuatro Cienegas — *Tour 
Meadows." The meadows are there all right, 
though not immediately apparent to the newcomer. 
But keen sportsmen with an eye to a bag of ducks, 
geese or other feathered game know very well their 
location — and are quite apt to keep that knowledge 
to themselves — though the friendly engineer who 
halts the train an hour or two to let some of his 
passengers shoot a goodly bunch of birds does not 
come under that category. 

The name is a pretty one — pretty to a degree, as 
well as appropriate ; rolls smoothly from the tongue 
of the native, as also from that of the foreigner — 
after he knows how. It is a pretty place, too — if 
you like places that are "different"; that are dusty 

11 



n SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

as becomes a locality where no rain falls on occa- 
sion for over two years at a stretch — where it may 
be said of a truth that "there falls not either rain or 
hail or snow" ; but which nevertheless has vineyards 
and orchards and gardens and flowers regardless 
of such trifling natural vagaries as absence of rain 
— deriving their life from a tumbling, dashing, 
noisy, attractive mountain torrent. 

A pretty location — ^mostly desert, though that 
fact makes the gardens all the more attractive. And 
incidentally one can readily possess himself of a 
loaf and a jug (of not bad native wine), and a 
tree in the desert — without going more than a mile 
or two from town — as also with an attractive 
"thou," native or otherwise, if he be disposed to 
follow the poet literally and with exactness — ^also 
with poetic license. 

It is, in a sentence, a place where one can loaf 
and invite his soul, if he be in the loafing mood and 
if perchance he have a soul ; and if he be a foreigner, 
the only one in the town, and have but a few words 
of the vernacular — ^just enough to eat and drink and 
on occasion swear by — he can surely loaf and invite 
his soul to his soul's content — and more, too ! Some- 
times altogether too much — and then some. 

Being, let us say (as was the writer), the only 



QUIET CUATRO CIENEGAS 13 

foreigner in town, none of the natives with a single 
exception speaking English ; with one's eyes in such 
a state that the physician had been obliged to pass 
sentence of "No reading'*; with only sufficient 
sporadic business to keep one occupied a few days 
each month — all too few for comfort of mind or 
body — what resource was left? 

We shall see. 

The only "loafing place" in a Mexican town is the 
plaza — ^barring, of course, the cantinas, as saloons 
are called. 

Wise in his day and generation, knowing that 
"breathing spots" are as essential almost as 
eating or drinking spots, the Spanish pioneer, 
in planning a town, always lays out the breath- 
ing spot first. He delineates this on broad and 
ample lines, and surrounds the plaza with buildings 
as a secondary consideration. Land may become 
valuable in time, the eyes of "business" — not native 
eyes — ^may be turned covetously on the plaza, but it 
is useless. The Spaniard or Mexican would part 
with the patio (interior flower-planted courtyard) 
of his house as soon as with the plaza of his town. 

So to the plaza all the idle and unemployed and 
infirm turn — and, anxious to follow the custom of 
the country, if for no other reason, thither went the 



14 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

writer to pass the long, weary hours between day- 
light and what hour far into the night when sleep 
at last drove him to his cot — literally cot — a spring 
mattress supported on two wooden "horses," in a 
bare, sparsely furnished room of an ancient stone 
structure made historical from the fact that during 
one of the violent revolutions of the past century 
four men sheltered therein held at bay a force of 
two hundred soldiers, killing and wounding many 
of them, and only succumbing when hunger, thirst 
and wounds made further resistance no longer 
possible. 

Like most plazas, this was a perfect jungle of 
trees, shrubbery, grass and flowers. The pathways 
diverged from the center like the spokes of a wheel, 
while the great trees met overhead, affording per- 
fect protection from the sun's rays, as also ample 
and most desirable accommodation for all who 
desire to take their afternoon's siesta on the benches 
(disposed along the tree-bordered walks. The ground 
was laid out in flower beds in genuine hit-or-miss 
fashion, intersected by irrigation ducts of the small- 
est. These beds were a mass of violets, purple fleur- 
de-lis, roses, geraniums and what not. The roses 
were a new variety to me — genuine products of 
Arabia, I was told. Certainly, I had never seen 



QUIET CUATRO CIENEGAS 15 

their like or their equal even in that land so favored 
of roses — California. With large petals, semi- 
double, of the most beautifully delicate shell-like 
pink, shading into translucent white near the heart, 
and of a sweetness indescribable, they were easily 
the queen of the entire rose family. The delicate, 
evanescent scent was borne on the gentle breezes to 
an unbelievable distance, and to sit near the rose 
thickets and inhale the exquisite odors was to make 
one dream he was indeed in Araby the blest. And 
the violets ! In the deep shade of the shrubbery, in 
rich soil kept moist by the constantly flowing irriga- 
tion rivulets, the plants grew heavy and dense, while 
the blossoms were luxuriant and odorous far beyond 
anything known in less favored climes. They 
seemed to exhale the very quintessence and concen- 
tration of countless millions that had gone before. 
I never inhale the odor of roses or violets but the 
memory of the flower beds of the Cuatro Cienegas 
plaza, all the more attractive because of the very 
irregularity of their arrangement, comes back with 
overwhelming force, and I long to sit and dream 
the idle hours away as I so often sat and dreamed. 
Indeed, it seems now as if it had never been any- 
thing but a dream. 




A STRANGE BUSINESS 

O the plaza then ! And since, as will 
be shown, "business" required 
that an eye be kept on the main 
highway leading to the desert 
region to the west, and on the 
opposite side of the encircling range of rugged 
mountains, a bench was selected beneath the thick 
shade of a china-berry tree just across from the 
church between which and the plaza passed the 
highway aforesaid. This bench, by the way, soon 
became recognized as the especial private appanage 
of "El Gringo," as I quickly became known far 
and near (not, by the way, as an expression of con- 
tempt and unfriendliness, but merely because I was 
the Gringo, and the only stranger in the town), 
and few ventured to occupy it even during my tem- 
porary absence. 

The "business" referred to was the receipt and 
shipment to the factory of quantities of the won- 

16 



A STRANGE BUSINESS 17 

derful rubber producing shrub called "Guayule," a 
desert growth once regarded as worthless, but which 
in a few short years brought wealth to so many 
of the land owners and speculators of Northern 
Mexico. This was gathered in a region a hundred 
miles and more to the northwest in the heart of the 
desert, was baled and hauled on wagons by mules 
to the nearest railroad point, which, in this case, was 
the town of Cuatro Cienegas. There being no ready 
means of communication with the guayule region, 
and locomotion by mule power being necessarily 
slow and uncertain in such a country, the arrival of 
the wagon trains, made up of twenty great vehicles 
drawn by hosts of mules (attached to the wagons, 
by the way, in strange and incomprehensible fashion 
— ^two "on the wheels,'' five "in the swing,*' and 
four "in the lead") was all a matter of chance. So 
from daylight until dark it was the writer's cheer- 
ful business to sit on the bench described, walk out 
into the middle of the road at intervals of twenty 
minutes to half an hour, and look up the highway 
some mile and a half to a point where it left a 
defile in the mountains and debouched upon the 
plain. The instant a cloud of dust appeared in 
the distance of sufficient volume to denote the pos- 
sible advent of a wagon train — though it might be 



18 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

a band of cattle or sheep, or a train of donkeys, or 
anything except the expected guayule shipment — a 
coach was requisitioned. A coach in Mexico, by 
the way, is any kind of a vehicle that carries pas- 
sengers, from a half-spring Studebaker wagon to 
the finest product of a French carriage maker of 
the last century. In the coach a hasty trip was 
made up the road to meet the supposed train, though 
three out of four or more of such journeys were 
fruitless, as there were several people engaged in 
the same business and many trains were on the 
road. Still there was more or less uncertainty con- 
nected with the affair, and as the wagon trains 
awaited by me averaged about three trips every two 
months, the monotonous character of the daily 
watch and examination of the road may perhaps be 
imagined. Certainly it would require a violent 
stretch of the imagination to suppose there was any 
undue excitement connected with the "business." 



THE EDUCATED CROW THAT PLAYED 
THE PIANO 

^'""""ll "^ HE only resource then was to be- 

l|^BS |B||fc come interested in the life that 

Hl^n^^HL went on in and around the 

: ^JH ^ ^^^ni lb' plaza. One might well be ex- 

•==^^^^^^^r cused for fancying that in a place 

of no more than three or four 

thousand inhabitants, where every one was securely 

housed by eight in the evening, not much of interest 

could be found even from the vantage point of the 

center of the town's activities — the plaza. 

But not so ! 

As will be shown, there was an abundance of 
interest, if one but looked for it. 

The first acquaintance made was a crow — a jet 
black crow! And it was a friendly sort of bird, 
too. One of the choice products of this region is 
the pecan nut, and the writer being fond of them 
frequently filled his pocket with a quantity of 

19 



20 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

already cracked ones, and consumed them while 
waiting for the long expected wagon trains. Not 
long after he began his daylight, nut-consuming 
vigil, one afternoon a crow alighted on the edge of 
the gutter a dozen or fifteen feet from the settee. 
He cocked his head first on one side, then on the 
other, darted his bright eyes at the stranger, and 
after due consideration evidently concluded that 
nothing was to be feared. Besides, he liked pecans 
himself! So he hopped a foot or two at a time 
across the sidewalk nearer and nearer until he 
reached the opposite end of the settee. Then after 
a quick glance of appraisement he hopped onto the 
seat, and then to the top rail. Then he slowly sidled 
along, watching closely for the first sign of enmity 
or interference. But care was taken not to alarm 
the bird and he finally approached nearer and nearer 
until at last within touching distance. A pecan held 
out in the open hand was grabbed like a flash, the 
crow made a short flight to safety, and then stood 
on the ground while he ate the nut, afterwards com- 
ing back for more. Friendship thus established, 
soon we were chums and greatly enjoyed our com- 
munion. Incidentally the crow enjoyed the pecans! 
Not long after it was learned that the bird was 
the pet of the young daughter of a hotel keeper. 




Packing Adobes on a Burro 




Rural Transportation 



THE EDUCATED CROW 21 

After expressing curiosity about the friendly crow, 
I was amazed when I was told it had actually been 
taught to pick out an air on the piano with its bill, 
and upon evincing incredulity I was invited to wit- 
ness the proof — which I did and saw with my own 
eyes and heard with my own ears the wonderful 
performance. And the crow appeared to appreciate 
the fact that his piano feat was unique. He cocked 
his head on one side, almost laughed aloud, and his 
attitude just as plainly said, "I am some crow, am 
I not?" as if he had uttered the actual words. 

But the bird developed a habit which finally led 
to his banishment. The hotel in question, like the 
majority of houses in the smaller towns, had no 
windows such as are known in this country. The 
window openings were protected with perpendicular 
iron bars, and inside were solid shutters of wood, 
which were left open except at night. The crow 
made a practice of flying into the windows through 
the bars, picking up any shining object from table 
or bureau, flying out with it in his beak, taking it 
over to the "hoozegow," or local jail on the other 
side of the plaza, and carefully depositing it in a 
letter box that was fastened by the side of the door. 
By the way, the word quoted was long a puzzler. 
Having lived many years in California, it seemed to 



22 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

me to have a distinctive Chinese flavor, and as it 
was usually pronounced no clue was afforded to its 
actual etymology. "Hoozegow?" What did it 
mean ? After awhile inquiry developed the fact that 
the word was "Juzgado" (court or jail), corrupted 
by common usage into "hoozegow." 

The crow became such a nuisance and was the 
cause of so much complaint on the part of the guests 
at the hotel that he was finally donated to a botani- 
cal and zoological garden in the city of Monterrey, 
greatly to the regret of those who had enjoyed his 
friendship and his antics. But he was a fund of 
amusement for a long time, and helped many a 
weary hour to pass agreeably. 





3trj>a Jfourtli 
WHY THEY THOUGHT I WAS RUDE 

AME to my reserved seat in the plaza 
one day Don Martin, a typical Mexi- 
can gentleman, who had done much 
to smooth my path and assist me in 
the prosecution of my enterprise. 

And just a word by way of preface: I arrived 
in Cuatro Cienegas an absolute stranger. Had 
never been there, did not know a soul, and was far 
more lost than the historical cat in a strange garret 
— supposed to represent the very acme of loneliness. 
At that time I did not possess enough of the lan- 
guage of the country to swear by, even to swear 
with, and scarcely enough by which to eat. 

Securing a couple of rooms, I was busy, with the 
help of a peon, setting them to rights and arrang- 
ing the few necessary bits of furniture, when a fine- 
looking, portly gentleman of fifty or thereabouts 
knocked at the open door. "Pardon me," he said, 
"my name is Martin Arredondo. Some of my peo- 

23 



U SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

pie told me that a strange American had arrived in 
town with the evident intention of remaining. 
Knowing that there were no other foreigners here, 
an<J as I am the only native who speaks English, I 
thought I would call upon you without delay and 
place my services at your disposal. If there is any- 
thing in which I can assist you, I hope you will not 
be backward in coming to me." 

And this was no perfunctory offer, either, made 
out of mere courtesy and with no expectation that 
any use would be made of it. In all my stay in 
this town Don Martin more than fulfilled his prom- 
ise, many times doing me favors, as I learned sub- 
sequently, without solicitation upon my part. I was 
indebted to him over and over again for courtesies 
and services of the most valuable kind. 

Beyond giving me his name and pointing out 
the location of his residence, my visitor did not 
inform me as to his standing in the place, but 
merely contented himself by offering his assistance 
and inviting me to call. Very soon, however, I 
learned that he was one of the leading citizens, an 
extensive property owner, manager of a branch 
bank, and in every respect easily the foremost and 
most influential resident. 

And many a time I thought, and still think: How 



WHY THEY THOUGHT I WAS RUDE 25 

long would a strange Mexican in an American 
town, knowing little of the language or customs, 
wait before the leading banker and property owner 
would call upon him and tender his services ? How 
long, indeed ? This question need not be answered. 
There isn't any answer ! 

But to resume. 

Don Martin sat down by my side and, after a 
few moments of conversation, said : 

"Senor Semanas, pardon me, but will you permit 
me to tell you something that I am sure will be of 
benefit to you?" 

I assured him that there was no necessity for his 
asking my pardon — that I was only too glad to have 
him give me any information or make any sugges- 
tions that lay within his power. 

"Very well, then. Some ladies were calling upon 
my family the other day, and I overheard their 
conversation. After speaking of various matters, 
they finally began to talk about you, and after won- 
dering as to your business here, how long you 
expected to remain, etc., they remarked that they 
thought you had acted very rudely indeed during 
your stay." 

I was thunderstruck. For a moment I could not 
find words. Then I said: "Why, Don Martin, 



m SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

what could they have meant? I have treated no 
one rudely since coming here. In fact, I have 
hardly spoken to any one, and do not know any of 
the ladies even by sight. How can they accuse me 
of having been rude?" 

*1 will explain it to you," said Don Martin. "The 
ladies went on to say, in explanation of what they 
thought was your rude conduct, that you had been 
here several weeks, that they had seen you on the 
plaza in the evenings when there was music 
(Wednesdays and Sundays), that you had passed 
them again and again (the custom being that the 
women all walk by themselves in one direction and 
the men by themselves in the opposite direction), 
and in all that time you had never once spoken to 
one of them! They were not accustomed to such 
rudeness of conduct, and wondered where you could 
have come from, that you were so guilty." 

As soon as I could catch my breath I said : "Why, 
Don Martin, in California where I lived many 
years, and in all other portions of the United States, 
if a man dare speak to a lady to whom he has not 
' been introduced, or unless she speaks to him first, he 
is apt to find himself in very serious trouble — even 
in jail. And, naturally, I supposed the same rule 
prevailed here." 



WHY THEY THOUGHT I WAS RUDE ^7 

*We have different customs here, especially in 
small towns like this. If a stranger considers him- 
self to be a gentleman and the equal of the people 
whom he meets on the plaza during the music, it is 
his duty to speak to every lady whom he passes. If 
he does not do this, he is regarded as a boor and 
very ill bred.'' 

I thanked Don Martin for his kindness, and gave 
the very pleasant ladies of Cuatro Cienegas no fur- 
ther occasion for criticism on this account. Inci- 
dentally, I made some very interesting and enjoy- 
able acquaintances. 





3b|»U jFiftfj 

THE DEVOUT PRAYING CRIPPLE. 

"And the publican, standing afar off . . . smote upon 
his breast, saying 'God be merciful to me a sinner/ " 

Y reserved seat in the park was, as 
stated, across the street from the 
church, though not directly in 
front of it. The main door of the 
reHgious edifice was usually open, affording a view 
of the dim interior and of the altar lights in the 
rear. It is the universal custom in places of this 
size and location, when passing a church, to lift 
one's hat, and, wishing to conciliate the people and 
to show respect for their sentiments, I soon fell into 
the habit. Another peculiarity of churches in many 
places is that there are no pews and no seats except 
such as the worshipers provide for themselves. It 
is a frequent sight to see a party of ladies and 
children passing along the street toward the church, 
followed by a servant carrying an armful of fold- 
ing chairs. So, too, with theaters in many towns. 

28 



THE DEVOUT PRAYING CRIPPLE 29 

One is expected to bring his own chair, or be con- 
tent to stand throughout the performance. 

Soon after establishing myself as a more or less 
permanent resident in the plaza, I noted an old, old 
man, a crippled hunchback, who came regularly 
thither, and taking up his position on the outer- 
most edge of the curbstone, exactly in front of the 
main door of the church, engaged for long periods 
in the most earnest devotions. His conduct re- 
minded one irresistibly of that of the publican re- 
ferred to in the quotation, and in one's mind one 
could readily see the Pharisees praying in public 
and thanking God that they were not as other men 
— though far be it from me to even hint that there 
were any of this class in Cuatro Cienegas ! 

Always he began by lifting his eyes reverently to 
the cross that crowned the church tower, then bowed 
his head, crossed himself, and as could be seen by 
the movement of his lips, repeated a prayer. 

Then his glance came down to the doorway and 
the lights of the altar in the background, and again 
he bowed, crossed himself, and again offered a 
prayer, crossing his arms repeatedly over his breast 
as he did so. This was all by way of preliminary. 
After these acts of devotion, he yet again bowed his 
head, closed his eyes, and with crossed arms on 



30 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

breast, stood for half an hour and more at a time, 
motionless as a statue, bareheaded in the blazing hot 
sun, with moving lips and with an expression on his 
face of the deepest reverence. Occasionally he re- 
moved his arms from their position on his breast 
and made the sign of the cross, but for the most 
part the only movement that could be detected was 
that of his lips. He seemed lost in thought and 
entirely oblivious to the life that was going on 
about him. The playfully mischievous boys, ready 
enough to ridicule or torment anything out of the 
ordinary in the way of human kind, passed him by 
in silence and respected his devotions. These lasted 
generally for an hour or thereabouts, and when he 
turned to depart there was an expression of rapt 
spiritual elevation upon his countenance that was 
good to see. Surely there could be no doubt on the 
part of the observer that, whether one believe in the 
efficacy of prayer or not, this poor cripple, seem- 
ingly with nothing in life left worth living for, 
found deep satisfaction in this silent worship. 

Singularly enough, in all the time that this devout 
man came under my observation, I never saw him 
enter the church. He was always content to stand 
afar off, lift up his eyes to the cross, and pray. 
Throngs might be passing in and out of the sacred 




O 

H 



a; 

N 



W) 

(U 

U 



c3 

u 



THE DEVOUT PRAYING CRIPPLE 31 

edifice, but he never joined them. Whether it was 
as a penance that he denied himself this privilege, I 
was never able to learn. But those of a devout dis- 
position frequently impose such punishments upon 
themselves, and appear to take deep delight in in- 
flicting spiritual as well as bodily pain upon their 
own minds and bodies. 

But that the poor cripple found an inexpressible 
satisfaction in thus worshiping could plainly enough 
be seen. 

By the way, speaking of church-going customs in 
Mexico, there is one very admirable practice, that 
might well find imitation elsewhere. The Mexi- 
can women do not go to church to show their finery 
(far be it from me to insinuate that there are any 
women of any nationality who actually do that), 
for the simple reason that they have no opportunity 
to make any such display. Whether it is a church 
rule or only a custom, I do not know, but I do 
know that all women attending church wear plain 
black, and nothing else. There is nothing to dis- 
tinguish the rich from the poor, except the quality 
of the fabric. In cut, color and fashion there is no 
difference. In Mexican churches "the rich and the 
poor meet together — the Lord is the maker of 
them all." 



82 



SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 



There is one day when the custom is not fol- 
lowed — on Easter Sunday, at the later services of 
the day. At the first service all attend in sober 
black. At the subsequent ones they wear all the 
seasonable colors and the sight is well worth see- 
ing too. 





REGULAR PRIVATE BEGGARS ON 
REGULAR DAYS 

•^ ^^ T is Wednesday or Saturday, as the 
case may be. If I have left my 
room early and taken up my usual 
station in the plaza under my favor- 
ite china-berry tree, then my "regular beggars" fol- 
low me thither. Never by any chance do they lose 
sight of me on the days designated. For be it 
known, in small towns like this as well as in some 
of the larger ones, there are "regular" beggars* days 
when mendicants are allowed to make application 
for alms, being not supposed or permitted to do so 
on the other days. And each person not himself a 
beggar has his regular private ones who call him 
their "patron" (with a long "o"). Only on Wednes- 
days and Saturdays are one's regular beggars ex- 
pected to approach him, and woe betide the irregu- 
lar ones whether they annoy him on regular or 
irregular days. They are not permitted to poach 

33 



34 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

upon the preserves of the regulars at any time, and 
some rather warm scraps have been witnessed when 
such attempts have been made. The favored beg- 
gars are very jealous of their privileges, and forci- 
bly resent any attempt to deprive them thereof. 

Of course, at the outset one makes his choice 
among the multitude of applicants, endeavoring to 
select the most deserving as may appear to him, 
and also in keeping with the reasonable possibilities 
cf his pocket in this direction. In this case, early 
in my stay in Cuatro Cienegas, on the regular days 
a crowd of mendicants — about all there were in 
town, as I judged — flocked at my door, as I was 
not at that time posted upon the practice described. 
Foreigner and millionaire are synonymous in the 
native mind. Acting upon advice, I finally selected 
three whom I considered the most deserving. One 
was a cripple who had, besides having his legs 
mangled, lost his eyesight by a premature explosion 
of dynamite in a mine. His only possession was a 
violin, and this he was accustomed to play in front 
of the doors of his patrons, as a sort of notification 
of his presence, as well as of appreciation for their 
benevolence. It was impossible to look at this poor 
blind wreck of what had once been a stalwart 
miner without feeling the deepest sympathy for him. 




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REGULAR PRIVATE BEGGARS 35 

Another of the select trio was a man who walked 
about on his hands and feet, wearing sandals on 
both and never straightening up. He afforded a 
weird enough spectacle, and in his case too it was 
impossible not to pity him. He was said to have 
been born deformed and never to have been able 
to stand upright, and so to have had to go through 
life in this ungainly and painful position. 

The third of my private beggars was a poor, half- 
v\ritted boy of twelve or thirteen. He could not 
speak a word. Uncouth noises like those of an 
animal were the only sounds he was capable of 
uttering. He was the butt of some of the cruel 
boys of the town, who used to torment him solely 
in order to see him in his speechless rage. 

As soon as I had made my selections, the three 
favored ones saw to it that no others were per- 
mitted to apply, and a very rough, not to say pain- 
ful, reception was given any who dared seek charity 
from me. But after a while it appeared that one 
case was not quite so deserving as it appeared on 
the surface. This was the man who walked on all 
fours. One day Don Martin saw me give him 
some money and after he had left, asked: "Why 
do you give that man money?'* 

"Why? Because he is a cripple and in misery." 



36 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

"Yes, it is true he is a cripple and I do not 
wonder at your sympathy for him ! But he has no 
need to beg. He is far better off than you. He 
has a fine ranch near Monclova, and several houses 
in that town, from which he receives very good 
rentals — enough to support himself and his wife in 
comfort. He only begs because he knows people 
pity him and will give him money without inquiry." 

Further investigation showed that this was indeed 
the case, and he was cut off the free list promptly 
and decisively. 

Said another friend one day upon seeing me 
give money to the blind man: 

"Why do you give money to that man? Do you 
know what he does with it ? He gets drunk." 

I looked at the cripple — at his poor, sightless eyes, 
at his maimed legs, at his burned and scarred face, 
at his general appearance of misery, and then 
replied : 

"Well, so would / get drunk if I were in his 
condition." 

I found after a while that when I gave money 
to the half-witted boy other lads attacked him and 
took it away, he not being able to protect himself. 
So I arranged to always have some food in my 
room on the "regular beggar days," and when the 



REGULAR PRIVATE BEGGARS 37 

pitiful little chap appeared, always by sunrise on 
his regular days, I gave it to him and had him sit 
in the door under my care until it was consumed. 

Later I learned that soon after I left the place, 
this little sufferer was taken by death — a happy 
ending for a life that had been nothing but misery 
to him. But I can still hear the inarticulate noises 
he was accustomed to make when he was tormented 
by the cruel boys. It was horrible — no less. True, 
those boys learned something about what an angry 
foreigner looked and talked like, and were careful 
to let the poor little chap alone when in my presence. 









"YOU MAY PAY ME WHATEVER 
YOU PLEASE'* 

O me one exceedingly hot day, 
while sitting in the shade of the 
china-berry, and while a number 
of others were seeking relief 
from the excessive heat under 
the neighboring trees, came a teamster, one Juan 
Trevino, every inch a gentleman, notwithstanding 
his humble calling. He had done much work for 
me, hauling goods to and from the railway station, 
a mile or more out of town, and we had become 
very well acquainted. 

But first a few words of preface. It is a favorite 
practice of many who are engaged in performing 
public services for which perhaps there is no fixed 
charge, to reply, when asked what amount is due: 
"Whatever you wish to pay me." This is more 
frequently the case when dealing with foreigners 
than with fellow-countrymen. The average for- 
eigner will "stand'' for an overcharge and is usually 

38 



"PAY ME WHATEVER YOU PLEASE" 39 

willing to pay liberally for services that the native 
only rewards moderately — sufficiently, it is true. It 
is a favorite criticism among some Mexicans that 
the Americans have spoiled the help of the country 
by too liberal compensation, though this is as 
may be. 

Thus, in Cuatro Cienegas the regular rate as 
established by law for carrying passengers between 
the town and the railway station was twenty cents 
— ten cents American currency. Naturally, but few 
foreigners were aware of this, and consequently, 
after landing at the hotel, when they asked the 
driver the amount of the fare, the usual reply was 
"Whatever you like, Senor." Thereupon the pas- 
senger, nine times out of ten, would throw a half 
dollar to the driver and think he was getting off 
cheaply. Because of the known liberality of for- 
eigners in such matters, the native always prefers 
to trust to that trait rather than to the legal charges. 

So with Juan Trevino, teamster and gentleman. 
He had done much work for me, and as he always 
replied to my query as to the amount due, "What- 
ever you please, Sefior," by tacit understanding 
there was a sort of agreement that $1.50 was a fair 
and reasonable rate of compensation for a single 
trip to or from the station with an ordinary load. 



40 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

On the occasion referred to, a whim seized me 
and when he gave the customary reply — "What- 
ever you please, Serior" — I did not at once pay 
him, but said: 

'^JusLtiy just what do you mean by that? Do you 
really mean that you will be satisfied with anything 
I choose to give you ?" 

"Yes, sir. I mean just that. If you choose to 
give me one cent, or ten cents, or fifty cents, or one 
dollar, or two dollars, or five dollars, or ten dollars, 
it is all the same to me. I shall be perfectly satis- 
fied with whatever you choose to give me.'* 

Wishing to make a test, but entirely as a joke, 
I thereupon handed him one of the old-fashioned 
"cart-wheel" copper cents that used to circulate in 
Mexico as they once did in the United States, and 
which I was carrying as a souvenir. 

He accepted it, did not look at all surprised or 
discomposed at being thus taken at his word, 
thanked me in his customarily polite manner and 
withdrew a little to one side. The spectators, 
mostly drivers like himself, gave a yell of derision 
and bestowed all sorts of mockery upon their com- 
panion. But he only smiled and never said a word. 
I waited a bit until the storm of ridicule had sub- 




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"PAY ME WHATEVER YOU PLEASE" 41 

sided and then called to him to come nearer, which 
he did, still with a smile on his face. Then I said : 

"Juan, I was only joking. I did not mean that 
you should do that work for only one cent. Here 
is the usual price," tendering him three silver half- 
dollars. 

But he would have none of it. He refused most 
positively to accept the money and no amount of 
persuasion served to change his mind. 

"Sefior, I told you that I would be perfectly satis- 
fied with anything you chose to give me — whether 
it was a cent, or ten cents, or half a dollar, or one 
dollar, or two dollars, or fivt dollars, or ten dollars. 
You chose to give me one cent. I have taken it. 
I am perfectly satisfied. You do not owe me any- 
thing. I do not want any more money. I am a 
man of my word !" 

Nor could he be persuaded to accept the money 
and I was forced to actually put it in his vest pocket 
against his will, and to insist upon his understand- 
ing that I had no intention to defraud him of his 
just dues; that it was all a joke, and I wanted him 
as a personal favor to take the money. 

A little bootblack gave me an amusing experience 
in the same direction. He came to my settee one 
Sunday morning and I told him to black my shoes. 



42 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

I had seen him doing the same thing for some shoe- 
wearing peones on a neighboring seat and accept- 
ing from them the regular tariff of two cents. He 
knew, too, that I had seen the transaction and the 
passage of the money. So when he had completed 
the task I asked him the usual question — "How 
much do I owe you?" 

He hesitated, looked earnestly into my face, while 
an expression of indecision passed over his counte- 
nance. He was afraid to demand more than he 
had asked of the peones, under the law he could 
not, yet he decidedly wanted a better price from 
"El Gringo" and was puzzled how to go about it. 
Finally, after quite a period of hesitation, he des- 
perately blurted out: "Whatever you please, 
Seiior." He was rewarded with the price that I 
had always been accustomed to pay — ten cents Mex. 

But I shall never forget how the little chap 
studied my face while making up his mind, nor the 
expression of happiness when he found that he had 
"taken a chance" and not been disappointed. I 
tried my best to keep my face stern and sober while 
waiting for his decision, but I fancy he must have 
seen a sort of friendly twinkle of amusement in my 
eyes, for he at length took the plunge and an- 
nounced his momentous determination. 




Sirptt €igf)tf) 

NOVEL METHOD OF HANDLING MEAT 

NE of the oddest sights, perhaps, 
could be seen on the plaza early 
in the morning before school 
n^JIgg^S^^*^ "takes in." Boys are sent to the 
butcher shops for the daily supply of meat — such 
places being designated by no other sign than a red 
flag displayed on a bamboo pole over the doorway 
of the establishment. Which led to a specimen of 
the genus "turista" remarking, upon looking down 
a populous street and seeing a half-dozen of these 
blood red banners fluttering in the breeze: "Why, 
they must have a lot of scarlet fever here. Look at 
the quarantine flags! Let us get out of here as 
quickly as possible." And they went! 

Instead of wrapping the purchase in paper, as in 
this country, a bit of string or maguey fiber is tied 
around it, long enough to permit of a loop in the 
free end, which is passed around the purchaser's 
wrist, and he starts for home. 



44 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

Just imagine a bunch of American boys thus 
equipped! The result need scarcely be hinted at. 
One boy takes a "swipe" at another with his beef- 
steak, or veal cutlet, or slice of liver, or pork or 
mutton chop. The other boy quite naturally re- 
sponds in kind. The friends of both come to the 
support of their champions, and a real nice, inter- 
esting little fracas follows, which only serves to 
bloody the noses and faces of the combatants, to 
muss them up generally, but does not injure the 
meat in the least — perhaps makes it a bit more 
tender ! It is indeed a sight worth seeing ! 

But not always do the boys fight with the meat. 
They all have pockets full of marbles, and one 
challenges another to a game "for keeps." The 
challenge is accepted. Half a dozen boys join in 
the game. They lay their steaks and chops and 
cutlets and roasts down on the grass, or if there is 
none, then on the ground — small care have they as 
to the place of deposit! Then to play most ear- 
nestly, oblivious of the fact that breakfast may be 
waiting the prompt delivery of the meat. The ever 
present dog is on hand, of course, in greater or 
lesser numbers, and they eye the toothsome morsels 
so carelessly lying there on the ground. 

The boys become so absorbed in their game that 



NOVEL METHOD OF HANDLING MEAT 45 

they are entirely careless of their canine compan- 
ions, pay no attention to them, and soon one makes 
a rush, grabs one of the chops or steaks or cutlets, 
as the case may be, and dashes madly for a place of 
safety, followed by the entire band of four-footed 
companions. And then a battle royal is waged for 
a mouthful of the stolen dainty. 

And then, when the game is finished and an 
account of stock is taken, the chopless or steak- 
less boy goes crying homeward — though why he 
should cry I do not know, for never once in ten 
years of life and travel in Mexico did I see a child 
punished with violence by a parent. It is only in 
more highly civilized (?) countries that angry 
parents beat and thrash and maul their children 
for some youthful offense of carelessness or heed- 
lessness — in Mexico never! 

Barbarous Mexico? ? 





LITTLE JUAN JOSE WONG AND HIS 
SISTER "LUPE" 

'[j^a^^ T is midday. "High noon by the old 
^^ town clock." In this case, the church 
clock. School, which has been in 
session since eight o*clock in the 
morning, is "out." (How would American chil- 
dren like to be kept at their studies four long hours 
on a stretch? This in the forenoon and another 
long three hours in the afternoon?) Up the main 
street and across the plaza comes a stream of youth 
of both sexes, home-and-dinner bound — for dinner 
is a midday meal in Mexico. It is an interesting 
sight — as children always are. Mexican children 
are just like others too — strangely enough, consider- 
ing the fact that many Americans and other for- 
eigners seem inclined to doubt their possession of 
the same sort of feelings and the same sort of 
capabilities as their own. 

46 



LITTLE JUAN JOSE WONG 47 

These children play "tag," and "peg top," and 
"duck on the rock" (the most ancient child's game 
in the world), and "marbles," and "hide and seek," 
and other games dear to the childish heart in every 
country under the sun. They fly kites and enjoy all 
the sports known to childhood the world around. 
And they play bullfight, too! And right lively 
times they have of it! One boy is "it," and the 
others take off their coats and flaunt them in his 
face, just as if they were the red capes of the real 
bullfighters. And the boy who is "it" charges and 
bellows and paws the ground and throws dust in the 
air, like a sure-enough bull, and occasionally makes 
a swift dash at one of his supposed tormentors and 
rolls him in the dust, to the great merriment of the 
other participants and of the onlookers as well. 

Most of the kiddies soon become acquainted with 
''El Gringo," and have a pleasant smile and greet- 
ing for him. Especial favorites, however, are little 
rolypoly black-eyed Juan Jose Wong and his dear 
little sister "Lupe," that being the two-syllabled 
diminutive for Guadalupe, a favorite name in this 
country for men as well as women, taken from the 
much revered patron saint of Mexico, the Virgin 
of Guadalupe. As may perhaps be imagined from 
the names, these children are the offspring of a 



48 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

Chinese father and a Mexican mother-— and it is 
notable how women of the better peon class are so 
willing to take a Chinese husband. There are any 
number of such unions all over the country, and it is 
a marked peculiarity that the women are almost in- 
variably the best looking of their class. 

And the children ! They are pretty, attractive in 
person and manner, bright and intelligent. Down 
at Monclova, the big railroad town forty rhiles 
away, is a school entirely devoted to the education 
of the children of such couples, and the teachers 
have assured me that no equal number of pupils 
in this country, or any other for that matter, could 
surpass these for quickness of apprehension or 
ability to learn with rapidity. Few indeed could 
equal them. 

Little Juan Jose's father and mother are good 
friends of mine and when he and his sister pass 
from school they always stop and we have a little 
chat. Juan Jose proudly shows his books and the 
slate upon which is his daily task, evincing great 
satisfaction thereat! Their books are looked over, 
and perhaps some candy or nuts pass more or less 
surreptitiously from "El Gringo" to his little 
friends. Who knows? Anyhow, the little ones 
soon shake hands in farewell (even the smallest 



LITTLE JUAN JOSE WONG 



49 



children are taught to salute their elders thus both 
on meeting and separating), and they pass on 
homeward, halting and turning to give a friendly 
hand wave and another smile to the lonely 
foreigner. 





THE CRIMEAN WAR AND THE 
MEXICAN PLAZA 

"Half a league, half a league, half a league onward, 
Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, 
Rode the Six Hundred!" 

HO among us who was a school- 
boy fifty years and more ago, 
is there who did not on a 
Friday afternoon, when the 
hated and much dreaded hour for "speaking pieces" 
came around, recite "The Charge of the Light 
Brigade ?" How we rolled it out ! What a pleasure 
it was to be able to utter in public and under the 
cold official eye a word which, when used privately 
and in strictly personal matters and discussions, 
brought condign punishment if overheard by our 
elders or those in authority. How we did love to be 
able to talk from the platform about people going to 
hell, while if we did the same kind of talking, only 
not in poetical fashion, on the playground, we were 

50 



THE CRIMEAN WAR 51 

so sure to catch something of the same kind ! Why, 
it was almost as good as being a minister and being 
able to talk about hell-fire and damnation right out 
in public 1 

We began our youthful "piece speaking" with: 

"You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To speak in public on the stage," 

Or: 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, 
How I wonder what you are." 

Or with: 

"How big was Alexander, pa, 
That people called him great?" 

From that we progressed to: 

"The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast." 

Then came: 

"The boy stood on the burning deck 
Whence all but he had fled." 

And lost his life because he had not good plain 
common sense enough to know that his father must 
surely have perished and would have wished him 
to leave the burning vessel with the others. In duty 
bound of course,we had to publicly admire the devo- 
tion of the lad in waiting for orders from his dead 
parent, and incidentally waiting to be blown to 
smithereens when all had sought safety elsewhere. 



52 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

Away down in our own hearts we thought he was a 
bit of a prig and we could not see anything very 
noble in throwing one's life away in that manner. 
Far better to have gone with the others and lived 
to fight another day. It seemed to us that that 
would have been the better way to have rendered 
service to one's country. Anyhow, we did not be- 
lieve the story. There never was such a boy! 
There couldn't be — except in Sunday School books ! 
A great favorite too was "Excelsior !" How the 
teacher did struggle with us while we singsonged 
our way through: 

"The shades of night were falling fast 
As through an Alpine village passed," etc. 

And tried to make us give the proper emphasis to 
each "Excelsior" at the end of a stanza. 

Then too there was the famous "Marco Bozzaris" 
of the Greek revolution and its ringing: 

"Strike till the last armed foe expires! 
Strike for your altars and your fires! 
Strike for the green graves of your sirQS, 
God and your native land!" 

My, how we did love to bring out those last four 
lines! How we did shout them and thrash the air 
with our arms and our imaginary swords, and 



THE CRIMEAN WAR 53 

waste no pity on the Turk who at midnight slept in 
his guarded tent and never dreamed what we were 
doing to him! 

Then came the Civil War and its accompanying 
flood of martial "poetry'* and otherwise. We told 
on the school platform all about the fight between 
the Monitor and the Merrimac. We told how: 

"At anchor in Hampton Roads we lay 
On board of the Cumberland sloop of war." 

And how: 

"Then like a kraken, huge and black, 
She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp." 

We hadn't the faintest idea what a "kraken" was, 
but it was a fine sounding word and we could make 
the little ones fairly goggle-eyed with our fierceness. 

And then came dear old Barbara Frietchie ! We 
had it early and we had it bad in our little old 
New Jersey school ! And to this day, considerably 
more than fifty years later, I can recite every word 
of it, from 

"Up from the meadows rich with corn, 
Clear in the cool September morn," 

Clear down to: 

"And ever the stars above look down 
On thy stars below at Frederick Town." 



54 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

But what has all this to do with the shady re- 
served seat of "El Gringo" under the china-berry 
tree in a far-off and lonely Mexican village? 

It is a far cry from the bloody battle fields of 
Sebastopol and Inkermann and Balaklava and Alma 
to quiet, peaceful little Cuatro Cienegas. It is a 
long distance chronologically from the stirring 
events of the Crimean war in the early fifties down 
to the tenth year of the twentieth century! Three 
score years have passed and what possible connec- 
tion can there be ? 

We shall see! 

I am sitting in my favorite shaded nook, my 
friend and instructor in things Mexican (Don 
Martin) by my side. We are idly watching the 
people passing in and out of the hotel on the corner 
half a block away. A stranger (to me) emerges 
and comes toward us. He is a spare, upstanding 
man, with snow white hair and mustache, face finely 
wrinkled and tanned by the desert sun till it is a 
deep umber, but withal he strikes out briskly despite 
the heat and carries himself like a soldier — which 
indeed he is, or rather was. 

As he approaches, Don Martin says: "Here 
comes a man whom you have often told me you 
would like to meet. He lives in Ocampo, away out 



THE CRIMEAN WAR 55 

on the desert, and he is the owner of those decora- 
tions which are in my safe and which I showed you 
when you first came here. I will introduce you." 

We arise as he comes nearer and the introduc- 
tion is given. I shake hands with the stranger. 

He is Alphonse Martellet, Sergeant of the fifth 
battalion of the Forty-third regiment of the line, 
veteran of the Crimean war, veteran under 
Marshal Bazaine during the French invasion of 
Mexico, proud owner of the Victoria Cross and the 
decoration of the Legion of Honor. And withal 
as quiet and unassuming a man as one could ever 
meet. Born in San Lorenzo, on the Gran Riviere, 
in the province of Jura, he entered the army early 
in life and did not leave it until the end of the 
French occupation of this country. 

Greetings having been exchanged, we sit down 
and Sergeant Martellet tells us about the Crimean 
war. He was in all the bloody engagements of the 
campaign. He saw the charge of the Light Brigade. 
He was with a battery on one of the hills command- 
ing the valley down which the gallant Six Hundred 
rode to their death, and he shakes his head as he 
tells of the rashness, the needlessness, the folly of 
it all — all the result of a misunderstanding between 
two officers who were too proud to waste time in 



56 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

explanation. It is ancient history, but how inter- 
esting and thrilling from an eye-witness ! 

Finally I turn the conversation to the two notable 
decorations. 

"Sergeant," I say, with more or less diffidence, 
"Don Martin has shown me the decorations belong- 
ing to you which he has in safekeeping. Will you 
pardon me if I ask you to tell us why they were 
given you? It surely must have been for some act 
of bravery much out of the ordinary. Will you 
not tell us the story ?" 

The Sergeant gave me a lightning glance. He 
drew himself up, clicked his heels together, saluted, 
and said: 

"They were given me for doing my duty, sir !'* 

And no amount of persuasion could prevail upon 
him to give the slightest hint whatever of what 
must have been some extraordinarily gallant act. 

As has been said. Sergeant Martellet was in 
Bazaine's army and his term of service expired 
before Napoleon III withdrew his troops, after 
having received a gentle hint from the Washington 
Government that their continuous presence on 
American soil was not regarded with favor by the 
United States. Martellet had seen so much of the 
country that he had become enamored of it — or 



THE CRIMEAN WAR 57 

rather of one of its fair daughters, for his wife, a 
Mexican, must have been a very handsome woman 
in her younger days, as one can see readily enough. 
So he remained, and settled down in the little village 
of Ocampo, away out in the desert, and lived there 
many, many years. When I met him he was 93 
years of age, but was as active as many a man 30 
or 40 years his junior. I begged him for a photo- 
graph, but he had never had one taken, and as there 
was no photographer in town and my own camera 
was out of commission, I was obliged to be 
disappointed. 

But we drank a copita together of the best French 
brandy to be obtained, I told him it was one of 
the greatest honors I had ever enjoyed, and with 
a warm grasp of the hand, another military salute 
and a few words of compliment, he went off down 
the street en route to his desert home. 

But think of it! From Balaklava to Cuatro 
Cienegas ! From 1854 in the Crimea to 1910 on the 
Coahuila desert! 




3bj>ll Clebentf) 

THE CAPTURED BOY WHO FOUND 
HIS WAY HOME 

GAIN I am occupying my favorite seat 
under the dense and grateful foliage 
of the china-berry tree. And, by the 
way, never was there a tree so fitted 
for tropical climates. Never was there a tree which 
gave such complete shelter from the heat of the tor- 
rid sun. Not a ray of burning sunlight can pene- 
trate beneath it. The limbs hang well down toward 
the ground in graceful curves, while the mass of 
verdure overhead is so dense that even the blue sky 
is shut off from view. By all means if one be seek- 
ing grace of appearance, beauty of outline and 
every shade giving quality, he should plant a china- 
berry on lawn or in garden. 

As was so frequently the case, Don Martin was 
by my side and we were engaged in our favorite 
occupation — exchanging information regarding 
each other's countries. Both were anxious learners. 

58 



THE CAPTURED BOY 59 

Glancing down the walk at an approaching figure, 
Don Martin said: 

"Here is an interesting character. This man who 
is coming has been a soldier most of his life, but 
when he was a small boy of eight, in the days when 
the Comanches and Apaches were accustomed to 
raid this region from the north, he had an experi- 
ence of the most remarkable character. Here — I 
will ask him to tell you himself about it." 

He was invited to a seat and Don Martin told 
him that *'E1 Gringo" would like to hear the story 
of his capture by the Indians and his remarkable 
escape from them. This man was different from 
Sergeant Martellet. He had never had the educa- 
tion nor the advantages of the associations that the 
Frenchman had enjoyed and his memory was not 
nearly so keen. Jose Martinez was his name. He 
was over eighty, but did not carry his years well by 
comparison with the hero of the Crimean war. 
However, his military life had kept him from fall- 
ing into early decrepitude and he was still as hale 
and hearty as could reasonably be expected at his 
time of life. 

This is the story he told us, sitting there in the 
cool, refreshing shade of the china-berry tree. 

"It all happened many, many years ago. I was 



60 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

born in this town. It is my tierra — my home. 
When I was eight years old, my parents, who were 
poor, put me on a horse and sent me to herd the 
animals of the other people out in the valley every 
day in order that they might have enough to eat. 
Every morning at sunrise I went from house to 
house on my horse and collected the cows and horses 
and burros and goats and sheep, and drove them 
out into the valley where there was grass and 
w^ater. I carried some tortillas in my pocket and 
I stayed out there alone all day, bringing the ani- 
mals back at night. When we reached the edge of 
the town they all went home of their own accord. 
I did not have to bother with them, as each knew 
its owner's place, while I went home to my parents. 
"The favorite pasture ground was on the trail 
toward the Sierra Mojada pass and near the Ojo 
de Agua (literally the eye of water — a large spring 
two or three miles out). This spring, as you know, 
is around the other side of the point of the moun- 
tain of Ante-Ojo (the spectacles). It is out of 
sight of Cuatro Cienegas and is a very lonely place 
indeed. Frequently I passed days at a time there 
without seeing a single person. Of course I knew 
that the Indians from the desert sometimes made 
raids and stole cattle and horses, and killed people, 



THE CAPTURED BOY 61 

but I knew that if anything happened to me it 
would be as God willed, so I was not afraid. 

"One day I shall never forget. I had eaten my 
dinner and sat down in the shade of a tree near the 
Ojo de Agua and had fallen asleep. I woke sud- 
denly and saw I was surrounded by a party of 
Comanche Indians, some armed with bows and 
arrows and some with guns, and all looking very 
fierce and angry. Some of them wanted to kill 
me, but the Chief interfered and said no — ^that I 
should go with them and be an Indian. So they 
rounded up the cattle and horses — they did not 
want the goats and sheep, though they killed some 
of them and carried the meat with them. They put 
me on my horse, and tied my hands behind me with 
some rawhide thongs. They also fastened a thick 
cloth over my face so that I could not see which 
way we went or the trails we followed. An Indian 
took the reata of my horse in his hand to lead it, 
and then we started, driving the stock of the Cuatro 
Cienegas people before us. 

"We traveled till dark, and then went into a 
rocky canyon and made camp. It was pitch dark 
and they took the cloth from my face, but did not 
untie my hands except when they gave me some- 
thing to eat, and then they tied them again quickly. 



6£ SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

All that I could see was that we were in a very 
wild and rocky canyon. Before daylight in the 
morning they blindfolded me again, put me on my 
horse with my hands tied, and we traveled again all 
day. It was very tiresome and I tried to think of 
some way to escape. Every night I tried to think 
of a plan, but they watched me too closely and 
there was never any chance, as they kept a guard 
awake all the time, for fear we might be followed. 

"We traveled this way for four days, going 
many, many leagues, and I began to think I would 
never see my home and my family again. I did 
not let the Indians see me cry, but at night I could 
not help crying very much. 

"On the night of the fourth day we camped in a 
very mountainous place and by this time I was feel- 
ing so sad that I did not care whether the Indians 
killed me or not. I was determined to get away 
if I could. The Indians were very tired and they 
were now so far from Cuatro Cienegas that they 
were no longer afraid of pursuit, so they set no 
guard that night as they had done before. 

"They all laid down and soon all were asleep. But 
I could not sleep. I was too sad. After awhile I 
saw that all were sound asleep, so I got up very 
quietly from where I was lying between two of 



THE CAPTURED BOY 63 

them. If any one woke I was going to tell them I 
wanted a drink of water. I went very slowly and 
cautiously to the spring of water that made this a 
camping place. My hands were tied behind me 
with some rawhide thongs, but I knew very well 
how to loosen them by wetting them. So I sat 
down with my back to the water and reached down 
into it until the thongs were covered with it. Soon 
they began to get soft and then I stretched and 
stretched them until at last they came off and my 
hands were free, but they were very sore and tired. 
"I put the thongs in my pocket so that the Indians 
could not find them and know that I was free, and 
then I went away from the camp farther up into 
the rugged gulch, as I knew when the Indians left 
they would go the other way to the mouth of the 
canyon. I stepped and jumped from rock to rock, 
and did not walk in the sand or on the ground, so 
as not to leave any trail for the Indians to follow. 
At last I found a little cave or crevice under some 
rocks and in such a lonely and hidden place that 
I did not believe they could find me. I crawled 
into it and arranged some loose rocks in front, and 
then I laid down and went to sleep, after praying 
to the Virgin of Guadalupe to protect me, as my 
mother had taught me to do. When I woke it was 



64 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

broad daylight and I could hear the Comanches 
hunting for me and calling to each other. You 
may be sure I kept very quiet and did not move. 
But they did not find me, and at last they started 
away with their stolen cattle and horses. 

"I stayed in the cave a long time, for fear some 
one had remained behind to watch for me, but after 
waiting several hours I crawled out and looked 
around. I did not know where I was. I had never 
been in that country so far from my home, away 
out on the desert, and knew nothing about it. But 
I took a long drink at the spring and ate a little 
jerky (dried meat) that I had hidden in my shirt 
and which I had stolen from the Indians' supply the 
night before when my hands were untied to let 
me eat. 

"I did not know which way to go in order to 
get back to my home, though I had tried my best all 
the time the Indians had me to remember or to see 
in what direction we were traveling. I sat down 
and thought what was the best thing to do. Then 
I remembered that while traveling, all the morning 
the sun used to shine directly on my back and that all 
the afternoon it shone straight into my face. This 
I could tell even though I was blindfolded. So I 
concluded that if I changed this about, and traveled 




Road up the Canyon from Cuatro Cienegas to the Desert '^ 




Starting for the Desert 



THE CAPTURED BOY 65 

in the morning with the sun in my face and in the 
afternoon kept it on my back, I would surely come 
to Cuatro Cienegas after awhile. So I did this. I 
traveled almost as fast on foot as the Indians had 
on horseback, because they had to drive the stolen 
cattle and horses before them and could not go 
very fast. 

"I found some tunas (nopal cactus fruit), which 
I ate and the jerky I stole from the Indians lasted 
me a long time. I knew the desert water signs too, 
my father having taught me, and so I got along 
very well, though sometimes I was very thirsty, as 
the water is very far apart. 

"But I was so glad to get away from the Indians 
that I did not mind that. At last, on the after- 
noon of the fifth day after I got away from the 
Indians, I came in sight of the Cuatro Cienegas 
valley through the Sierra Mojada pass, and recog- 
nized it. In a few hours more (it was after sun- 
set) I walked into my parents' house. My mother 
was very much frightened and thought I was a 
ghost, for they all beheved the Indians had killed 
me. They all thought it was a very wonderful 
thing that I had done, but I could not see it. It 
was the only thing to do if I ever expected to see 
my family again. After that they always sent a 



66 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

man with a gun to guard the herd while pastur- 
ing, and did not let a boy go alone. But I would 
never have escaped from the Indians and got safely 
back to my home if I had not remembered about 
the sun. 

"Yes, I was only eight years old, but I had always 
remembered what my father taught me." 




LEISURELY MANNER OF TRANSACTING 

BUSINESS 

'Y friend, Don Martin, as has been 
stated, was the local manager of a 
branch bank. This, as is custom- 
ary in Mexico, was located in a 
portion of the same building occupied as his family 
residence, and was just across the street from one 
corner of the plaza. It was necessary for me to 
transact considerable business of a financial nature 
with him. The bank was in a large room, with a 
space at the entrance separated by a half -height 
partition from the part devoted to the safes, desks, 
etc. Don Martin's son Carlos was the cashier. 

The door through the partition had a sort of 
combination catch that could only be operated by 
those who had been initiated into its use, but very 
early in my acquaintance I was given the "open 
sesame'* and passed in and out as I desired without 
ceremony. 

67 



68 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

The method of transacting business here, as in 
many other portions of the Republic, was so novel 
and so at variance with American customs, that it 
is worth noting. Here is the manner in which I 
was accustomed to cash a draft or to send one 
away: 

I entered the place, opened the door into the rear 
and passed through it. Usually four or five and 
sometimes more gentlemen would be there, all sit- 
ting down and talking with Don Martin, and all 
having business to transact in due time. Immedi- 
ately upon my entrance they all arose and we shook 
hands and exchanged the usual daily greetings. 
Then, if there was no extra chair for me, a mozo 
would be sent to an adjoining room for one, and 
not infrequently one of the standing gentlemen 
would hand me his and they would all insist upon 
my sitting down, the others remaining standing 
until the needed extra chair was brought. None 
would seat himself until such time as chairs were 
provided for all. 

Then we would chat for awhile on various sub- 
jects, and finally Don Martin would ask what he 
could do for me. I would explain, and he would 
instruct his son to comply with my wishes. This 
would be done in full leisurely fashion, and after 




Peon Family at Home 




Upper Class Family Group in Patio of Residence 



TRANSACTING BUSINESS LEISURELY 69 

the completion of the transaction I would remain 
awhile longer. Finally I would arise, and immedi- 
ately all the others also arose, and I passed from 
one to the other, shaking hands with each in turn 
and wishing him a pleasant day. Not one would 
resume his seat until after I had left. After bid- 
ding them all adieu individually I turned at the door 
and bade them farewell collectively, after which I 
went on my way. I had consumed perhaps half an 
hour, perhaps longer, in an operation that in the 
United States might have required one minute, pos- 
sibly two or three. 

But why not? That is the custom of the country 
— at least in the more remote districts. There is no 
hurried rushing into a bank, slapping a piece of 
paper on the counter, standing or dancing im- 
patiently while the cashier or teller spends half a 
minute or a minute in verifying the signature, grab- 
bing the money and rushing out at top speed. No ! 
Why not imitate the Mexican custom to some extent 
at least? Take your time! You will get just as 
much business done in this fashion in the long run 
as if you rushed and hurried and made yourself 
and every one else uncomfortable by your conduct. 
And incidentally you will get a vastly greater 
mount of satisfaction and comfort out of life. 



70 ^SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

When a man is seen rushing and hurrying along 
the street in many Mexican towns, one can hear the 
subdued expression among the disgusted onlookers, 
"There goes another tonto (crazy) American!" 
And who shall say this expression is not too often 
deserved? For the very man who does so much 
hurrying and rushing will loaf by the half hour 
after he has got over his hurry. 





3bpU tCfjirteentfi 
GENEROSITY A NATIONAL TRAIT 

UT in the open it is hot — ^burning, 
sizzling, scorching hot! There is no 
equivocation about it. It is hot as 
— well, as a furnace! The ther- 
mometer is well above the hundred mark and the 
rays of the sun scorch and burn as they can and do 
only in a region for the most part desert in char- 
acter. But while the heat is intense — you can cook 
eggs in the sand if you will — and it is positive 
cruelty to animals to force your saddle horse to 
wade through it at midday — its effects upon the 
human sensibilities do not compare in any manner 
as to bodily discomfort, mental distress or even 
danger, with what is too often the case in sup- 
posedly more favored regions. The atmosphere is 
so dry, so nearly without appreciable moisture, that 
the deleterious effects of extreme heat are far less 
than are experienced in a temperature of twenty 

71 



72 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

degrees less but in a location nearer large bodies 
of water or with more vegetation. 

Away from the direct rays of the sun — as for 
example in the grateful shade of the china-berry 
tree which was "El Gringo's" favorite point of 
observation — it is by comparison cool and com- 
fortable. Not a single ardent ray from the super- 
ardent sun penetrates the dense shadows. A 
gentle breeze stirs the vegetation of tree, shrub and 
plant, and brings the grateful fragrance of the plaza 
flowers to the nostrils. It serves also to keep cool 
the body, clad in as few and as flimsy garments as 
is consistent with the ordinary observances of 
tropical society — no, not a society that is tropical, 
but a society of the tropics ! The streets are deserted 
by man and beast — or at least all those to the man- 
ner born. Perchance some stranger — some "tonto" 
— ^may be seen venturing into the blaze of the mid- 
afternoon sun, but those who are wise remain under 
shelter, either of house, tree or vine. 

It is almost mid-afternoon. The sun is well 
below the meridian. School "takes in" at three 
o'clock, and from various directions come the little 
ones thither bound. It is near the close of the 
siesta hour, and the children have the streets practi- 
cally to themselves. From every point come the 



GENEROSITY A NATIONAL TRAIT 73 

boys and the girls — there is but one educational in- 
stitution in the town, though a spacious one, sur- 
rounded by experimental gardens where the young 
ideas are taught how to dig as well as to shoot. 
They keep closely in the shade of house and tree, 
and take advantage of every shred of protection 
from the sun's still oppressive rays. They are in 
no hurry. Nothing short of a wild animal could 
persuade them to move faster than at the proverbial 
snail's pace — as will be shown in another pleasing 
little experience that once befell the gatherers in 
the plaza. 

Here too, wise in the devices of his occupation, 
comes the ice cream peddler. Well he knows who 
are his best customers, and he establishes himself 
and his cart-supported freezer of delicious coolness 
in the dense shade of a cluster of great trees at a 
point of juncture where troops of children from 
three different thoroughfares converge. Well he 
knows how tempting are his evanescent and to tell 
the truth somewhat doubtful wares (as regards 
cleanliness and component parts) in the tropic, tor- 
rid heat of a tropical and torrid mid-afternoon. 
And well he knows how to charm the ultimate 
centavo from the ultimate pocket of the ultimate 
kidlet, be it male or female. 



74 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

It is interesting to watch the affair. Here comes 
a little ten-year-old girl — ^pretty as a picture, a great 
deal prettier than some pictures — with a bevy of 
dear friends — pretty ones — ^very dear ones, as it 
proves — dear indeed! They have learned in some 
manner, more or less occult, with the occultism of 
childhood, that their fortunate companion has be- 
come possessed in some way (how they care not) 
of the large sum of five or ten centavos. The little 
capitalist — just like a grown-up one — ^has in conse- 
quence a superabundance of friends, though in this 
case it is not fair to fancy that it is only the posses- 
sion of comparative wealth that causes the less 
fortunate ones to group themselves around her and 
accompany her schoolward — also ice-cream-ward ! 

Straight to the ice cream peddler march the little 
squad of feminine humanity. The youthful leader 
makes known her desires, which strangely enough 
appear to be in exact accord with the desires of her 
companions — if eyes can express desire. The dealer 
ladles out a generous portion — a heaping saucerful 
of frosty, tempting, appetizing sweetness. The lit- 
tle ones form a circle about the capitalist, the light 
of expectancy in their eyes, and looking for all the 
world like a nest full of birdlings waiting with 
open mouths the food that they know will be sup- 



GENEROSITY A NATIONAL TRAIT 75 

plied by their parents. The capitalistic investor in 
frozen delightfulness proceeds straightway to 
apportion the delicious morsels — a spoonful at a 
time. The first spoonfuls are generous and heap- 
ing. Then by reason of the rapid diminution of the 
parent supply they become smaller and smaller. 
The generous-minded little distributor glances at 
the remaining open-mouthed ones, gauges the 
amount of ice cream that is left, and manages to 
make it go around, just go around, leaving no one 
unsupplied except her own dear little self! Alas 
and alack, when her own turn comes the plate is 
empty — as empty as that of the fabled Jack Spratt 
and his wife. The last melted drop has disappeared 
into the mouths of her associates, and she has had 
never a taste ! ! Just the proverbial smell is all that 
falls to her lot! 

Her smile is brave, though perhaps a bit rueful! 
There is really nothing to be said. The rest of 
the party, Hke herself, are "stone broke." So the 
little bankrupt capitalist returns the saucer and 
spoon to the peddler and trudges sturdily off toward 
the school, not indicating by any visible act that she 
felt disappointment or regret at having been so 
ultra-generous. Her enjoyment at witnessing the 
enjoyment of her little playmates was apparently as 



76 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

great as it would have been had she devoured the 
entire dish of ice cream herself without outside 
assistance. 

So too with the boys as well as the girls. Many 
a time, sitting at one side and out of observation, I 
have seen the little kiddies gather about one of their 
number who was the possessor of some candy, cake, 
fruit, or other delectable morsel. Many a time 
have I seen the possessor break off pieces and pass 
them around until the whole had been given away 
and he or she had not a morsel for themselves. 

It is in truth a pretty sight — a testimonial of the 
most convincing character as to the innate unself- 
ishness of the people. And many a time I have 
said to myself: "I wonder how long I would have 
to wait before I saw children of any other nation- 
ality give such spontaneous exhibitions of generosity 
and unselfishness." I wonder! Or rather, I do not! 

And this beautiful trait is not confined to the chil- 
dren, by any means. Grown-ups are just as gen- 
erous, not only with luxuries but with necessaries 
'as well. 

They will divide their last morsel of food with 
some one who is hungry. While food was scarce in 
Mexico City I saw a small roll handed to a peon 
who was eyeing a basket full of bread with the ex- 



GENEROSITY A NATIONAL TRAIT 77 

presslon of a starving animal. He took it hastily, 
started to put it to his mouth, then turned to another 
peon equally hungry looking and said: "Here — 
you are hungrier than I," at the same time giving 
him three-fourths of the morsel, and retaining only 
a mouthful for himself! A family may be seated 
at a meal which is scanty enough for them, but if 
a hungry person chances by, even though he be a 
total stranger, he will be invited in the heartiest 
manner to share in the food. 

If there is any one thing that Mexicans are not, 
it is in being greedy where food or delicacies are 
concerned. 




3bj»ll jFourteentfi 

AN OPEN-AIR MOVIE EXHIBITION 



^^ F the writer who pre-empted the title 
el "Far From the Madding Crowd" 




could have known Cuatro Cienegas 
as "El Gringo" came to know it, 
both from his own especial settee in the shade of 
the china-berry tree in the plaza, as well as from 
his wanderings about the town and its outskirts, he 
would have conceded beyond the peradventure of 
a doubt that no spot in his own country, no matter 
how secluded or how remote, could for one moment 
excel it or even compare with it in loneliness or in 
the absence of anything that savored of the presence 
of a crowd, whether madding or not. 

The pretty little hamlet lay off the beaten path 
of traveler or tourist. Few ever came thither except 
on business bent, and when that was transacted, 
departure was quickly taken. On occasion the 
solitary daily train arriving about midday discharged 
an infrequent foreigner. "El Gringo's" coign of 
vantage was so situated that none could enter the 

78 



AN OPEN-AIR MOVIE EXHIBITION 79 

town without passing under his more or less eagle 
eye, and if a single one managed in a year and a 
half to escape the welcoming hand and voice of his 
fellow-countryman or fellow-foreigner, as the case 
might be, as quickly as he entered the hotel, no 
record was kept of such untoward event. There 
were none ! At the first glimpse of a foreign face, 
"El Gringo" hastened across to the hostelry and 
welcomed and was welcomed by the visitor. Many 
a pleasing acquaintance was made in this manner, 
and the assistance and information afforded the 
newcomer amply compensated the pleasure of meet- 
ing a compatriot. 

The annual "fiesta" was the only event that drew 
any number of strangers Cienegas-ward, and its 
brief week ended, the place lapsed again into its 
usual somnolence. 

Of a truth, it was a good place for one to rest 
and think — or perhaps merely to think that he was 
thinking! A good place to let one's mind lie fal- 
low ; to let the old crop of thoughts and fancies die 
out completely, or be turned under, buried and put 
out of sight, to fertilize and give place to a fresher, 
newer growth that eventuated mayhap in a fresher, 
newer, better harvest. As the Hebrews of old were 
commanded, and with good reason, to permit their 



80 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

lands to remain uncultivated one year in seven, to 
lie fallow and rest, why should not human kind 
give themselves surcease from toil, if not as often 
as did the ancients with their lands, at least at 
proper intervals? Surely, if mere earth profits by 
such a rest, the human mind and body should reap 
equal benefit therefrom? 

But while Cienegas was quiet and sleepy, innocent 
of excitement as a rule, still there were times when 
a ripple of novelty and interest swept over the com- 
munity (as related elsewhere for example), and 
such an occasion was afforded by the advent of the 
first moving picture that had ever come to the com- 
munity — absolutely the first ! It is difficult in these 
days of such displays, when every hamlet in the 
land has its "movie theater," to imagine such an 
unusual event, and still more difficult to realize the 
intense interest and surprise manifested by those 
who had never seen anything of the kind in all 
their lives, long or short as the case might be. 
Some, it is true, had witnessed such exhibitions in 
their infrequent visits to Monterrey, the metropolis 
of this section, or who had ventured accross the 
border and as far as San Antonio, the pleasure- 
affording Mecca of holiday makers from Mexico, 
and had found it difficult to convince their skeptical 



AN OPEN-AIR MOVIE EXHIBITION 81 

friends that they were indeed teUing the truth about 
the marvels of the picture world, even if they did 
not repeat the experience of the staid and trust- 
worthy attorney whose home was in a remote town 
in the State of Durango, and who completely de- 
stroyed his reputation for veracity by a recital of 
but a tithe of the wonders that he had witnessed in 
a memorable visit to Coney Island! Some had 
read about the latter-day wonders of the photog- 
rapher's art of the twentieth century, but to many 
they were as strange and unknown as the nebular 
hypothesis or the depths of the milky way. 

Came then a "cienematografia" to far-away 
Cuatro Cienegas, meagerly equipped, it is true, with 
films ancient even then, and so damaged by poor 
manufacture, much travel and rough handling, as to 
be almost undecipherable. Came the impresario and 
sought eagerly for some building or hall suitable for 
the presentation of the novelty and for the accom- 
modation of the crowd that he felt sure would 
throng to inspect the views. But no such place 
was to be had. Diligent search throughout the 
entire town failed to disclose a room that would 
in any way answer the desired purpose. 

The weather being pleasant (as was the rule 
where rain nor snow nor hail falls for months on 



82 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

months in succession), the perplexed manager 
finally decided to make use of the only possible 
method for presenting his attraction, and that was 
in the corral at the rear of the hotel — a spacious 
area, surrounded by high adobe walls on three 
sides and the hotel on the other, from which doors 
opened directly. At one side were the sheds for 
the accommodation of vehicles and animals that 
preferred shelter to the open air, while on the other 
side were the flush walls of the hostelry. One 
corner was selected as the "theater," or auditorium, 
and ropes were stretched from stakes driven to sup- 
port them in order to rail off the audience from 
the four-footed occupants of the corral. A canvas 
sheet was spread as a roof, which formed the only 
shelter for the onlookers. An inner line of ropes 
separated the lowest priced portion of the audience 
from the higher priced one, this being the only 
distinction. All enjoyed equal advantages for view- 
ing the pictures. There were no seats, no chairs, 
nothing for the accommodation of the audience in 
this respect. All were as a matter of fact on an 
equal footing — ^master and peon. Those who de- 
sired brought chairs or boxes or what not upon 
which to sit, but for the most part the audience 
stood upon an exact equality. 



AN OPEN-AIR MOVIE EXHIBITION 83 

It was an odd sight. A few dim lanterns and 
candles afforded all the illumination needed. The 
gentle domestic animals, made curious by the un- 
wonted invasion of their quarters, gathered on the 
outskirts of the audience and actually appeared to 
take an active interest in the unwonted display. 
They preserved their equanimity to fully as great 
a degree as the humans who had never before wit- 
nessed such a spectacle, and were grave and decor- 
ous auditors as became the occasion. Ejaculations 
of surprise and delight were heard from every side 
and the audience gave every evidence of deep 
enjoyment. 

Altogether it was as remarkable a spectacle of 
its kind as "El Gringo'' had ever witnessed, and 
quite as much interest was aroused by the surround- 
ings and the demeanor of a large portion of the 
audience as by the pictures themselves. 

Since then Cienegas has been provided with a 
theater equal to the requirements of a larger town, 
but the "movie" display in the corral of the hotel, 
with its audience of animals in the background, has 
always been one of the favorite recollections of "El 
Gringo" in this country of unusual sights and 
sounds and unusual experiences. 




Stij^ll Jfifteentl) 

A LATE AFTERNOON PANIC IN 
THE PLAZA 

T is late in the afternoon. 

The sun is nearing the serrated 
ridge that cuts off the Cuatro 
Cienegas valley from the vast desert- 
stretches to the west. The air is becoming cooler 
every moment, as the evening shadows commence 
to fall. These shadows come early too — long 
before the time appointed by the calendar for this 
latitude has been reached for the disappearance be- 
low the horizon of the great orb of day. The 
mountains that guard the town on the west are so 
lofty that the sun is hidden from sight long before 
the usual time in less well protected localities. The 
shadows are creeping slowly down the foothills, 
bringing out the light and shade of canyon and 
ridge, of shrub and grass, of the vari-colored rocks 
in a manner that one never tires of watching and 
studying. 

84 



A LATE AFTERNOON PANIC 85 

The siesta hour has long since joined the ma- 
jority. "El Gringo" is in his favorite loafing spot 
on the settee in the shade of the china-berry tree, 
watching and studying the constantly shifting 
scenes about him. The streets are alive with the 
populace. All the seats in the plaza are occupied 
and the hum of life is heard in every direction. 
Children throng the little park, play about the 
benches, listen to the blind violin player, buy sweet- 
meats from the peddlers — ^bits of candied cactus and 
squash and such like national delicacies — and enjoy 
themselves in the same manner as do their kin all 
over the world. Everything is peaceful, quiet and 
calm. An air of inexpressible security and enjoy- 
ment is over all. 

Away up the street down which the guayule 
teams are wont to come as they near the end of 
their long and weary journey of a hundred miles 
from the heart of the desert, appears a cloud of dust. 
It rolls skyward as only dust can roll which has 
been pulverized to an almost impalpable powder by 
continued drought and thrown to the winds by the 
slightest disturbance of wheel, hoof or human foot. 
The cloud is so dense and hangs so closely to the 
ground, as well as towering aloft into the air, that 
for a long time and until it is well within the town 



86 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

limits, there is nothing to indicate with certainty 
the cause thereof. 

Finally the lowing and bellowing of cattle dis- 
closes the fact that a band of horned stock is mak- 
ing its way slowly along the highway, coming, as 
was subsequently developed, from the remote fast- 
nesses of the desert mountains, where they had been 
reared among the wildest surroundings, their only 
knowledge of civilization being the infrequent sight 
of a vaquero from whom they had fled in terror. 
Such a thing as a town, with its aggregation of 
houses and humans, was as foreign to them as the 
life that possibly exists upon the moon is to the 
earth dweller. 

They are leg weary and thirsty from their long 
journey. So too are the vaqueros and their horses. 
They have pushed the animals in order to reach 
the cattle corrals at the railroad station before dark, 
until, frightened by the unusual sights and sounds 
of the town, the beasts are on the verge of a 
stampede. The horsemen urge the unwilling 
animals down the street, nursing them carefully at 
each crossing in order to hold them together and 
prevent disaster. Thus they come along the thor- 
oughfare until the corner of the plaza is reached. 
The desert-bred animals sniff the air and the dust. 




Pack Train Carrying Firewood to Town 




Guayule Train Coming into Town from the Desert 



A LATE AFTERNOON PANIC 87 

The odor is not to their liking, it is so different 
from the pure, resinous air of the desert. They 
bawl and bellow, they toss their heads and roll their 
bloodshot eyes from side to side, lashing their 
bodies with their tails, prodding each other with 
their horns, and evincing every indication of readi- 
ness to break into a panic at the slightest provo- 
cation. The situation is tense and fraught with 
danger. 

There is a musically inclined individual living in 
a house that fronts on the plaza who is wont to 
while away the evening hours and wear away his 
neighbors' nerves at the same time by eliciting 
strange noises from the depths of a brass instru- 
ment of some sort, the like of which were never 
heard on land or sea, and which were well calculated 
to bring panic and fear to animals far more accus- 
tomed to the unusual than a band of desert raised 
bovines. 

Ignorant of the impending advent of the weary, 
nervous, half-crazed cattle, this individual estab- 
lishes himself on the sidewalk in front of his door- 
way, puts the mouthpiece of the instrument of 
torture to his face, draws a deep breath, and then — 
With a long drawn shriek and moan which 
would have put the most powerful foghorn to blush, 



88 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

if foghorns can blush, he rent the evening air, tore 
it to tatters. The cattle halted suddenly and 
simultaneously. What hellish trap was this into 
which they were being led! They had seen and 
heard strange and weird things since striking the 
outposts of civilization, but nothing like this. They 
stood breathless and motionless for a second or 
two, then with a chorus of wildest bello wings of 
fright they stampeded. Down the street they came, 
hell bent for the plaza. The vaqueros rode on the 
sidewalks and among them, seeking in vain to hold 
the crazed animals together. At each corner some 
broke away and dashed down the side streets, but 
the main body rushed plaza-ward. 

Shouts of warning were uttered, yells and curses 
were hurled at the unconscious cause, who did not 
realize what he had done until the leaders, with 
lowered heads and elevated tails, were close upon 
him. Then into the house he went at one jump, 
slamming the door just in time to escape serious and 
more or less deserved damage. 

Through the plaza the animals tore, the people 
fleeing in panic, climbing the trees, hiding in 
ditches, running to shelter in every direction. 
Dignity was scattered to the winds. Safety first 
was the predominant idea with all. "El Gringo" 



A LATE AFTERNOON PANIC 89 

saw and heard them coming. He had seen and 
heard such things before on a California cattle 
ranch and knew something about the danger there- 
from. Diagonally across the street from his seat, 
in an opposite direction from the church, was the 
"hoozegow," or jail, with doors and windows of 
iron bars — no more. He had never had any very 
friendly feeling for such institutions, except when 
confining law breakers of unusual hideousness of 
conduct, but in the emergency — ^the condition and 
not the theory — that now confronted him and his 
companions, the wide open door took on a most 
inviting aspect. The heavy iron bars looked good 
enough to him — real good in fact — just as they 
apparently did to half a dozen others. There was 
a simultaneous thought in the mind of each, there 
was a simultaneous dash for the open doorway, and 
there was a simultaneous arrival at the desired 
point. All reached it at the same instant and all 
sought to pass through it with as little unnecessary 
delay as possible. Forgotten were the niceties and 
politenesses of ordinary every-day intercourse. For- 
gotten was the delightful habit of stepping to one 
side on the narrow walk or in the doorway, salut- 
ing another and bidding him to pass first. Quite 
excusable was this forgetfulness. With a bunch of 



90 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

mad cattle close at one's heels, bawling and bel- 
lowing, just one instinct remained — that of self- 
preservation. So we all tried to get through the 
door together, became wedged therein, struggled 
frantically, but finally managed to squeeze through, 
then slammed the grating shut and from this secure 
point of vantage watched the proceedings in the 
street. 

Through the plaza the animals tore, the people 
fleeing in panic, climbing trees, hiding in ditches, 
running to shelter in every direction. Aided by 
some mounted men, the vaqueros finally managed 
to round up most of the animals, and it was decided 
to herd them into a corral in the middle of the town 
and not to attempt to drive them to the railroad 
station until morning, when they would have be- 
come quiet and more manageable. After a long 
time spent in coaxing, persuading and gently urg- 
ing the cattle, they were at length all driven through 
the gateway to the corral, with a single exception. 
This was a big black bull of fearsome aspect, who 
sullenly maintained his stand in the center of the 
street and contrary to general cattle usage refused 
to follow his companions. The vaqueros sur- 
rounded him, hit him with their reatas and quirts. 



A LATE AFTERNOON PANIC 91 

swore at him and sought in vain in some manner 
to persuade him to move. 

Finally one rash individual inflicted the crown- 
ing indignity upon his bullship. He seized the 
animal's tail near the root, and gave it an energetic 
and spiteful twist. That was all he did, but it was 
amply sufficient. He took no part in the subsequent 
performances. It was quite late in the evening 
before he was able to sit up and ask how the town 
had fared during the earthquake and what a pity 
it was that the church had been destroyed and frag- 
ments of the tower had fallen upon him — such 
incidents being almost unknown here! 

With a roar and a bellow, the bull, having first 
kicked his tormentor into unconsciousness, went 
tearing down the street. Every living object that 
met his view was a target for prompt attack. An 
inoffensive burro standing meekly by the roadside 
was struck squarely amidship and sent rolling into 
the opposite gutter. A horse or two met a like 
fate. Two or three men were bowled over, but fortu- 
nately the maddened animal was too bewildered, too 
anxious to get away from the town and into the 
familiar wilderness to permit of a moment's un- 
necessary stop. So they escaped uninjured except 
for painful bruises. Fortunately for all, the angry 



92 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

bull did not halt to gore any of the objects of his 
wrath. He had no spite against them that would 
lead him to desire their lives. He was in a desperate 
hurry, they were merely in his way, and they must 
get out of his path — that was all. 

Never was such a sight seen outside of the bull- 
ring. Women ran screaming to snatch their panic 
stricken children out of harm's way. Men sought 
places of safety no matter where or how. Half of 
the double door of a tailor shop stood open, too nar- 
row to admit of the animal's entrance, but he 
charged at it, was caught for a minute by one of 
his horns becoming entangled, stayed long enough 
to receive full in the face a brasero full of burning 
charcoal used for heating the tailor's "goose," with- 
drew with a bellow of added pain and rage, and 
then dashed on. By this time some of the vaqueros 
had recovered from their momentary panic and 
with reatas widely swinging came galloping down 
the street. Two were in the lead, and with a quick 
gesture from one to the other they ranged up one 
on each side, cast their reatas with unerring ac- 
curacy, then reined their horses back on their 
haunches, and braced themselves for the shock. It 
came. The bull was halted so suddenly that he 
turned a complete somersault, landing squarely on 



A LATE AFTERNOON PANIC 93 

his head and then falling heavily on his back. 
While the vaqueros tautened their ropes and held 
him harmless on the ground, another jumped 
quickly from his horse, drew a keen edged knife, 
and at one slash almost severed the animal's head 
from his body, the while one last resounding bellow 
of anger and pain went hurtling down the street. 

Oh it was some idyll — this stampede of the desert 
cattle — and for a long time it was used as a land- 
mark from which to date other events of less im- 
portance, or at all events with less thrill. 




A CHILD'S FAITH IN DON PORFIRIO 



•=^ T is early one morning — about nine 
^ o'clock. I have completed my "con- 




stitutional" of fifteen times around 
the plaza. Five complete circuits of 
the little park equal one mile in a direct line, as they 
do in the majority of similar cases in the Republic. 
Fifteen times is one league, more or less, or three 
miles. Sometimes when it is quite cool I make an 
even twenty laps, four miles, and it is done in a 
trifle less than one hour. Sometimes I have com- 
pany, and sometimes not, but as it is the only dust- 
less walk in the town, every morning and evening 
sees me "lapping" around the plaza. The evenings 
are the hardest part of the day in which to "kill 
time." Every one is off the streets usually by eight; 
a few dim acetylene lights here and there only serve 
to accentuate the gloom of the town. Not being 
permitted to read, either by daylight or lamplight, 
nothing remains but the plaza. The church clock 

94 




A Mexican Bride 



A CHILD'S FAITH 95 

strikes the hours and the quarters, the first in a 
deep tone, the others in one of Hghter sound. Thus, 
at 9.15 the clock strikes once in a silvery tone, fol- 
lowed by nine blows in the deeper tone of the hour. 
So when one wakes at night he can listen for the 
quarter to strike and can tell the time exactly. The 
clock strikes twice for the half -hour and three times 
for the three-quarters. Ten-thirty is the hour I 
have set for retiring, as I had found it impossible to 
sleep before that time, and the weary, dreary hours 
from dark until the time selected are about as weary 
and dreary as can be imagined. I walk from one 
end of the block upon which I live to the other over 
and over, and then cross to the plaza and walk 
around and around and around again. I listen to 
the striking of the clock as the quarters reel off, oh 
so slowly, and long for the chosen moment to come 
for going to bed. Finally it comes, the whole town 
is silent as a tomb, and I go to my room and to 
sleep. 

Long before nine next morning I am up, bathed, 
breakfasted, walked, and in my reserved seat in the 
shelter of the china-berry, for by that time the sun 
is well up, its rays are scorching and there is no 
comfort except in the shade. 

On this particular morning I am there with my 



96 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

customary companion, and as usual at intervals of 
twenty to thirty minutes I stroll to the middle of 
the highway and look off toward the mountain pass 
in the hope that the expected cloud of dust may 
materialize into the hoped-for wagon train of 
guayule shrub. The price of rubber has gone up, 
so has the price of the plant from which it is pro- 
duced, and my principals have urged me to hurry 
forward every possible ton, in order that it may 
be converted into coin. What this means may be 
judged from the fact that in no very great time 
the market value of the shrub has increased from 
$30 to $200 and more per ton. 

But there is no dust in the distance, and so I 
resume my seat. Soon comes little seven-year-old 
Jose Maria, with trouble, dire trouble, writ plain 
and large on his childish countenance. There is 
even a suspicion of tears and it is with difficulty he 
suppresses his sobs as he tells his tale of woe. 

Addressing us both after politely exchanging the 
usual salutations, as Mexican children always do, 
he asks: 

"Have you seen my kid this morning?'* 

A little inquiry develops the fact that an aunt had 
given him a kid as a playmate and that the little 
chap had straightway fallen in love with it. He had 



A CHILD'S FAITH 97 

petted it, fed it and even kept it in the house by his 
side at night. But his mother had finally been 
obliged to banish it to the corral. Here little Jose 
Maria had walled off a sheltered nook with adobe 
bricks, had arranged some straw for its bed, and at 
night, after feeding his pet, had left it in supposed 
safety to sleep until morning. This had been going 
on for some time, but this morning when Jose 
Maria went to give the pet kid its breakfast, the 
animal was missing and could not be found any- 
where, though he had searched for hours. Now he 
was going about town and asking every one whom 
he knew if they had seen his kid. He was heart 
broken over the mysterious disappearance. 

We suggested that he should go to the residence 
of his aunt who had given him the pet, as it was 
reasonable to suppose that it might have wandered 
back to its birthplace. The bereaved little chap 
hastened thither, but in about half an hour returned 
again, the picture of grief. No kid had been seen. 
He had examined the entire flock in the corral and 
his particular pet was not among the number. 

"Well, then," said Don Martin, "it must be that 
your kid has been stolen." 

"Stolen! How stolen? Who would steal my 
kid?" 



98 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

"Oh, there are thieves here who might steal it 
to eat." 

"What?" with consternation, surprise and dis- 
belief written all over his face. "Thieves in this 
town? Thieves here? Is Don Porfirio then dead, 
that there should be thieves in Cuatro Cienegas ?" 

And there was a whole volume in this childish 
expression of disillusionment and loss of confidence. 





Sbi^U ^ebenteentii 

THE INTERESTING PROCESS OF 
MANUFACTURING CANDLES 

ETWEEN the house of "El Gringo" 
— that ancient structure in which 
he never went to sleep without 
picturing in his mind the heroic 
^^ fight put up in the very room 
in which he slept, between four brave patriots 
intrenched therein and upward of 200 enemies, 
howling on the outside for their blood — and 
his private settee in the shade of the china-berry 
tree, were several places of business of one kind 
and another. Among these was one where the 
stranger often halted to watch the industry therein 
carried on and to exchange a few words of greet- 
ing with the genial, gray-haired man who consti- 
tuted in his own person the proprietor, manager, 
foreman and entire working force of a candle 
manufactory. In his younger days in a pioneer 
community it had been one of "El Gringo's" 



100 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

"chores" to assist in the preparation of the battery 
of tin molds, the tying of the wicks to the wooden 
cross pieces, and the pouring of the melted tallow, 
by which slow and laborious process candles were 
evolved — the only means of illumination known at 
that time, which was before the "invention" of 
petroleum as an illuminant. 

But this Cuatro Cienegas candle manufactory 
was of a different type. A great empty room, per- 
haps 20 or 24 feet square, opened off the street with 
a wide double door. With the exceptions to be 
described, it was entirely without furniture or ap- 
pliances of any kind. Into a massive beam over- 
head at a spot in the exact center of the high ceiling, 
was fastened an iron swivel hook which turned 
freely in any direction. From this hook several 
heavy cords made of ixtli fiber spread in cone- 
shaped fashion and were attached to a great 
wooden hoop that completely filled the room, with 
the exception, of course, of the corners. This hoop 
was suspended in an exactly horizontal position at 
a height of about four feet above the floor, and a 
single motion of the hand could send it spinning 
around and around until one became dizzy watching 
it, if he so wished. 

At intervals of about six inches apart, coarsely 




Hauling Vegetable Wax Plants to the Factory 




Guayule Rubber Factory at Cuatro Cienegas 



MANUFACTURING CANDLES 101 

and loosely spun bits of cotton cordage were tied 
to the hoop, which was of very light material and 
hung down some lo inches or thereabouts. On a 
box in one corner of the room where the curve of 
the hoop left considerable space, the proprietor- 
manager-foreman-working force sat. Just in front 
of him was a brasero with a small charcoal fire 
supporting an earthen vessel filled with melted tal- 
low. Any kind of animal fat answered the purpose. 
With a ladle in one hand, the candle-maker turned 
the hoop a trifle with the other until one of the de- 
pendent wicks was exactly over the tallow-filled 
vessel. Then he filled the ladle and poured it on 
the upper end of the wick, allowing the liquid to 
run down into the vessel, during which process a 
small quantity congealed and remained adhering to 
the wick. After many operations of this kind the 
tallow began to assume something of the propor- 
tions of a candle, but it required hours of patient 
toil, and continuous turning and ladling and pour- 
ing, before candles of proper size were at last pro- 
duced. These were not symmetrical in shape, as 
when cast in a mold, but when completed were 
about the diameter of an ordinary lead pencil at the 
top, gradually increasing in size until at the lower 
end they were an inch or so in thickness. The 



102 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

melted tallow, being hot when applied at the upper 
extremity of the candle, ran rapidly downward, but 
cooled quickly in the process, thus causing the 
candle to become much thicker at the base than at 
the top. After the candles had attained a sufficient 
size they were detached from the hoop, the base was 
cut off squarely with a sharp knife, and then they 
were ready for sale in the market. As these 
brought a very low price by comparison with the 
imported articles made of paraffin or other sub- 
stances, it was very plain to me that the pathway 
to wealth followed so earnestly by this gray-haired 
manager-proprietor-foreman-working force would 
be a very long one. It is possible that he may have 
realized a profit of as much as a dollar daily, but of 
this I have serious doubts, as the entire output of 
the factory for a day could have been easily carried 
away in a man's arms. Many weary hours were 
required in order to produce a single batch of 
candles, but the jolly manufacturer never seemed to 
tire of his task, while his friends happened along 
with regularity and halted for a bit of gossip or to 
smoke a cigarette with him, thus helping the time 
to pass. 



MANUFACTURING CANDLES 103 



SOMETHING ABOUT MATCHES 

Of cognate character was a match manufactory. 
Mexican-made matches, as most people are perhaps 
not aware, are an entirely different thing from the 
ordinary match of the rest of the world. The aver- 
age Mexican match is an inch to an inch and a 
quarter in length. It is made with a cotton cord 
coated with melted wax and is about one-sixteenth 
of an inch in diameter. It is double-headed, that 
is, has phosphorus at each end, and every match may 
be used twice. One can light a cigarette or a cigar, 
or start a fire, then extinguish the flame, return the 
match to the box and preserve it for the next time. 
Being constituted as they are, these matches can be 
used in the open air with much more assurance than 
the ordinary imported wooden match. They can 
be lighted and will remain burning in the face of 
a very strong wind, which with the other variety of 
match would be impossible. In the majority of 
factories these matches are made by machines, but 
in small towns everything is done by hand. The 
raw cotton is spun into threads and dozen of girls 
and boys are employed in the slow and laborious 
work of molding and tipping the matches. 



104 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

Speaking of matches, by the way, it is within the 
memory of people still living that such things were 
not known, and the old-fashioned flint and steel 
were the sole dependence for starting a fire. The 
story is told that when matches were first imported 
an enterprising storekeeper laid in a supply and 
endeavored to introduce them to his customers. 
One day an old chap from a ranch some 20 or 25 
miles distant dropped in and the dealer produced 
some of the wonderful novelties. He emphasized 
the ease with which a light could be obtained in 
comparison with the slow process of flint and steel, 
and as an illustration casually scratched a match on 
the leg of his trousers, saying: "See how easily 
you can get a light with one of these matches!" 
But the ranchero demurred and could not be per- 
suaded. "You say it will save time? Not so! 
How could I come to town and have you make a 
light on your trousers leg every time I wanted a 
fire? No, no; I will use my flint and steel!" 




3b|>ll €igl|teentl) 

A HOT- WATER BATH IN A BOTTOMLESS 

PIT 

" 1ET us go for a bath !" 

To "El Gringo," sitting 
in the shade of the china- 
•;'^^^- berry tree in the plaza at 
Cuatro Cienegas, came two 
friends with this proposal. 

Now, an invitation of that kind may seem a 
trifle odd and mystifying to the stranger. Ask- 
ing an acquaintance to "take a drink" or "have 
a smoke" is common enough in any portion of 
the world, but to invite one to take a bath might 
seem to open the way to some invidious comment, 
or possibly it might even be resented! Especially 
if a bath really were needed! 

Not so in Cuatro Cienegas, as will be seen! 

It is getting late in the fall. The torrid heat of 

the summer sun is tempered by the delightful 

breezes that blow up and down the valley — in one 

uniform direction by day and in the opposite course 

105 



106 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

aiter nightfall. The delicious grapes and other 
fruits produced here in abundance are at their best 
and we revel in them day after day. Such juicy 
fruit of the vine, such luscious figs, such pears and 
plums and peaches, and what not ! A few leaves are 
falling — ^but only a few. In a land where comes 
not either frost or hail or snow, and only on rare 
occasions any rain — or if it does it is so gentle as 
not to be unwelcome — there are no sharp changes 
of the seasons. They melt into one another so 
gradually that the summer is past and gone, the har- 
vest is over and done, autumn is in full tide, the 
"winter" even comes, and we only know it by the 
calendar and by the advent of All Souls' Day — 
Mexico's national Decoration Day — and by the 
coming of Noche Buena, or Christmas, later on. 

It is a lovely, genial mid-October forenoon, and 
the invitation to a bath comes to willing ears. 

But the reader must not be mistaken about it ! A 
bath in the United States and one in Cuatro Ciene- 
gas are vastly different things. About the only simi- 
larity is that both are wet! In other respects it 
would be difficult to imagine anything at greater 
variance from the rule in such matters than the 
bath there. 

First, we hustle about for towels, then start on a 




Municipal Building in Cuatro Cienegas 




Picturesque Canyon on Railway from Monclova to Cuatro Cienegas 



A HOT WATER BATH 107 

little journey of a dozen or so miles out into the 
barren valley, hiring a "coach'* and a couple of 
tough little mules for the occasion. "Machines" 
are an unknown quantity at this time and in this 
region. 

Then we drive through the vineyard-covered out- 
skirts of the town, raising several coveys of fat 
quail as we pass; but we do not stop for the tempt- 
ing shot, as we are intent on bathing and not on 
hunting. Then rapidly through a belt of fertile 
farming land, and then finally out into the unsettled 
valley prairies, where thousands of acres are cov- 
ered with a snow-white efflorescence interspersed 
with "sinks" heavily encrusted with varicolored 
crystallizations. We cross the "Salon de las Brujas" 
— which, being interpreted, resolves itself into "The 
Dancing Place of the Witches"— an appropriate 
designation, as will be explained. It being broad 
daylight, none of the "witches" are in evidence ! It 
is only after nightfall that they disport themselves ! 
Then, across the solidly encrusted ice-like surface 
of the salon, the brisk wind brings little twisting 
columns of the loose white salts, which flit hither 
and yon over the rolling valley surface and require 
little enough imagination on the part of the super- 
stitious natives to become endowed with super- 



108 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

natural and malicious life. Especially if the native 
be returning home after a day spent among the wine 
cellars or cantinas of Cuatro Cienegas and many 
"copitas" have been absorbed of the heady, but it 
must be confessed in many cases appetizingly 
seductive, products of the vineyards. 

Beyond the resort of the putative witches the 
road winds endlessly on and on toward the distant 
purple hills, which do not seem to become one whit 
nearer even after an hour or two of steady jogging 
travel. Mesquite thickets line the road and give 
shelter to a frequent rabbit or a bunch of quail or 
cooing doves, while from some overflowed land in 
the distance rise swarms of ducks and geese, which 
promise "good hunting" when the occasion offers. 
Then out from the thickets we pass onto a level 
plain covered with coarse clumps of sedge grass, 
through which we wind our way until the bathing 
place is reached. If it be the first visit of a stranger, 
it is an odd enough experience. If, however, he be 
familiar with the wonderful natural phenomenon 
that greets the eye, it still is of interest. One never 
tires of it. 

Suddenly and without any sort of warning the 
coach halts on the brink of as strange and wonder- 
ful a pool as can be imagined. All around is dry 



A HOT WATER BATH 109 

and barren, yet here is a circular basin, some 150 
feet in diameter, rounded as if laid out by an en- 
gineer. The brown sedge grass hangs heavy over 
the brim, and there is a straight drop of three or 
four feet to the surface of the water. And that 
water! Blue it is as the sky! Blue as indigo! 
And as the wind ruffles across its surface, if it be 
a cool day, light clouds of vapor arise and are 
borne hither and thither, for the water is hot — hot 
as blazes! At the edges the pool is two or 
three feet in depth, but the bottom slopes with the 
most perfect regularity at an angle of about forty- 
five degrees to the center, and it is snow white! 
A pure dazzling white, which, with the deep blue 
of the water, presents a most entrancing picture. 
Away down deep in the center, many, many feet be- 
low the surface, is a ragged crater-like opening 
through which pours a constant supply of water 
from the depths below, whose extent can be gauged 
by the fact that through an open cut at one side a 
ditch passes which is some six feet in width and 
carries a flow two feet deep. 

The bottom and sides of the pool are, as stated, 
snow white in color. The substance of which they 
are composed is smooth and greasy to the touch, 
and upon examination is found to consist largely 



no SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

of minute spiral shells, many of microscopic dimen- 
sions. In some places the deposit has a beautiful 
light salmon color of the most delicate hue. There 
is not a particle of grit and the material may be 
used instead of soap, possessing remarkable deter- 
gent qualities. One plasters it liberally upon his 
entire body, and then plunges into the hot water of 
the pool, the result being a most satisfactory and 
beneficial bath. There is only one drawback; one 
never knows when to quit! The whole sensation 
is so agreeable and so different from anything of 
the sort ever before encountered, that it is with 
reluctance you finally, after playing about in the 
water for an hour or more, emerge, don your 
clothes and regretfully turn Cuatro Cienegasward. 
While no analysis of this water has ever been 
made, so far at least as the writer knows, it has 
been demonstrated to possess curative properties of 
value. The famous General Escobedo, one of 
Benito Juarez's most valiant and valuable aids, in 
his revolutionary war, sought refuge at one time in 
this valley, and remained there for a considerable 
period. Being afflicted with a severe attack of in- 
flammatory rheumatism, and hearing the fame pos- 
sessed among the natives by the pool, he established 
a camp on the bank of the basin. A rude stone hut 



A HOT WATER BATH 111 

(still standing, by the way, in a ruinous condition) 
was thrown up, and a channel was excavated from 
the pool to the building, in order to conduct the 
water thither. In the floor of the hut a deep basin 
was hollowed out in the solid rock, and into this a 
constant stream of the hot water passed. The 
sufferer was accustomed to recline in this basin for 
hours at a time, in fact the entire day being passed 
in this manner, thus soaking his pain-racked body 
until it must have been completed saturated. The 
result was that in a few weeks the military leader 
was entirely restored to health and was again able 
to take the field. Since that time the pool has been 
generally known as the "Baths of Escobedo," and 
the natives come from far and wide to lave in its 
waters, as well as to thoroughly cleanse anything of 
a textile nature that needs renovation, with the 
least possible outlay of time and labor. 

And of such is the bath that "El Gringo" was 
invited to enjoy by his friends in Cuatro Cienegas! 
And did enjoy it many times! 

It is well worth traveling hundreds of miles ! 




StipU jginEteentf) 

TRAGIC ENDING OF A TRANQUIL 
SUMMER 

ND then suddenly, unexpectedly, with 
no premonition, no warning, like the 
shock of an earthquake, came the 
tragic ending of these peaceful, rest- 
ful months. One whose life has flowed on evenly, 
steadily, with none but the usual incidents in regu- 
lar and natural order, can have no idea of what it 
means to be shocked by the sudden and unheralded 
announcement of the violent death of one's closest 
associate, who but a few short days previously had 
been in the best of health ; had bidden his companion 
a hearty good-bye; who had a family whom he 
loved and by whom he was in turn adored; who 
was comparatively young and who had from every 
outward indication a long life of business success 
and happiness before him. And when the truth 
about that death is a mystery and must always 
remain so, despite close and careful investigation, 

112 



TRAGIC ENDING OF A SUMMER 113 

the shock is all the greater and its effects all the 
more lasting. They never pass away, but ever re- 
main as a dark cloud in the memory. 

It was on a lovely, peaceful, quiet Sunday after- 
noon. The plaza was thronged, as the band was 
about to begin its regular musical program, under 
the direction, by the way, of an expert musician 
whose name is attached to some of the most popu- 
lar airs in Mexico, but whose unfortunate failings 
— the failings of a genius — had doomed him to an 
obscure existence in this out-of-the-way place. 

I had been sitting ever since the close of the 
siesta hour on my favorite settee, idly watching the 
passing throng, receiving and exchanging saluta- 
tions, and never dreaming that my summer's idyll 
was close to an abrupt end. Some sudden impulse 
prompted me to cross the street and pay a call upon 
Don Martin at his residence — something I had 
never before done on a Sunday in all the time I 
had resided here. 

I had not been in the patio five minutes before 
the telephone bell in the entrance to the house rang, 
and my host answered it. I heard an exclamation 
of surprise, then a hurried conversation in agitated 
tones, and then Don Martin came back to where I 
v;as sitting and stood speechless for a moment or 



114 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

two. Glancing at his face, I saw a look of con- 
sternation upon it and noted that he was greatly 
disturbed for some reason. He hesitated a few 
moments and then said: 

"Oh, Seiior Semanas, I have some very bad news 
for you! I do not know how to tell it. It is 
shocking." 

"Tell me quickly," I replied. "Bad news is best 
told at once. I am used to it." As indeed I was, 
and was to become even more inured in the com- 
ing years. 

"Your partner out on the desert is dead — shot! 
He killed himself or was killed early this morning 
at his camp on the Fortuna hacienda, a hundred 
miles out. The Judge at Ocampo has just received 
the news and asked me to tell you." 

Further conversation over the telephone with the 
official in the town named, over forty miles distant, 
disclosed the fact that the Chinese cook, who was 
the only person with the dead man at the time, was 
under arrest, while stoutly maintaining his inno- 
cence of crime and declaring that it was a case of 
suicide, though he acknowledged he heard but did 
not see the fatal shot fired. But there was no 
reason why the victim should have wished to end 
his life. Indeed, the reasons were all of an opposite 



TRAGIC ENDING OF A SUMMER 115 

character; he had every inducement to cHng closely 
to existence. 

No amount of investigation, however, disclosed 
anything to contradict the story of the Chinaman, 
and as there were no other witnesses, he was finally 
discharged from custody at my request, though I 
was required to give a bond to produce him at any 
time if further investigation should be deemed de- 
sirable. Nothing however was ever done in the 
matter, and the case went into the same category 
with the many other mysteries of the desert wher- 
ever there is a desert, in the United States as well 
as elsewhere. No region is so prolific of the un- 
solved problems of human life and death. 

But the tragedy necessitated changes which soon 
put an end to my stay in Cuatro Cienegas, and it 
was with genuine regret that I gave up my familiar 
seat under the china-berry tree, paid farewell visits 
to my friends, and finally left the place which had 
so endeared itself to me, and undertook a long and 
arduous journey via muleback among the fastnesses 
of the Sierra Madre and the jungles of the West 
Coast — little known regions — and which it is in- 
tended to deal with at length in another volume. 




Hasit of tfje MvH^ 

A PEON WOMAN'S PHILOSOPHY AND 
IDEAS OF WEALTH 

i;^ N connection with the tragic end of my 
^ sojourn in Cuatro Cienegas, an in- 
teresting incident occurred illustrat- 
*'*^ ing the character of the despised 
peon (only despised by those who do not know 
him or her). 

During all my stay in the town my laundry work 
had been performed by a poor woman of the peon 
class — the last person to whom any one would credit 
the possession of any depth of feeling. To her, 
when turning over at her request the blood-stained 
effects of the dead man, and which she eagerly wel- 
comed, I casually remarked in discussing the details 
of the tragedy, that a sum of money in which I 
was equal owner had disappeared at the death of 
my associate. I had no intention whatever of com- 
plaining or bemoaning the loss, but merely men- 
tioned it as an interesting and perhaps suspicious 

116 



A PEON WOMAN'S PHILOSOPHY 117 

circumstance in connection with the mystery. But 
she evidently thought I was lamenting my monetary 
misfortune, for she looked at me a moment in 
silence and apparent surprise, not unmixed with re- 
proach. Then she said: 

"Why, Senor, you ought not to complain because 
you have lost some money, no matter how much! 
Your companion lost all he had — ^his life!" 

Could any one equal that for sympathy or 
philosophy? I hastened to disabuse her mind of 
the idea that I had any thought of complaining, for 
even though she was but a peon, I assuredly wished 
to justify myself in her eyes and not leave her with 
a wrong impression as to my feelings regarding the 
death of my associate. 

This same laundress, Maria was her name, had 
taken advantage of the fact that she had a "regu- 
lar" patron who always paid "C. O. D." for her 
services, and essayed to purchase a sewing machine, 
that ultima thule of the average Mexican housewife's 
ambition, obtaining it upon the "installment" plan. 
This is a serious task for a peon, since the un- 
conscionable price of $140 was demanded therefor 
by the agent of the only company of the kind that 
has obtained much of a foothold in that country. 
And when it is remembered that at the time of 



118 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 

which I write a dollar a day was considered good 
wages for an able-bodied man, while the average in 
the Cuatro Cienegas section was not fifty cents a 
day, one can see what a burden was assumed when 
an agreement was made to buy a sewing machine on 
monthly payments of even five dollars. 

It was Maria's custom to come to me the first 
of each month when the installment fell due and 
ask me to advance the five dollars necessary to 
discharge her liability, the amount so advanced to 
be deducted from that subsequently earned over, 
not the wash board, but the wash stone. This went 
on satisfactorily until she had made a very ma- 
terial reduction in her indebtedness. 

But when the time came that I was to leave she 
was sorely puzzled. It chanced to be just as an 
installment was due, and Maria came to me about 
it. I told her that I could not advance the money, 
as I was only to be in town a week longer and she 
would not have sufficient opportunity to earn the 
amount, while I could not afford to lose it. 

"Oh, but that makes no difference to you, Senor. 
You are very rich and I am very poor, and you can 
afford to lose so small an amount as five dollars." 

"Why, Maria," I replied, "I am not rich. I am 
poorer than you think. I have very little." 



A PEON WOMAN'S PHILOSOPHY 119 

"Oh, no, Seiior," she replied, *1 know you are 
very rich!" 

"Now, Maria, that is not so. You are very much 
mistaken. But how rich do you think I am ? How 
much do you think I gain in a month?" 

She gave me a long look of appraisal, studied me 
from head to foot, hesitated for a moment, evi- 
dently concluded to venture the maximum, and 
then said: 

"Very well, Sefior. I think you must have as 
much as a hundred pesos a month!" (The equiva- 
lent of fifty dollars in American currency.) 

This was manifestly the uttermost limit of her 
idea as to what constituted great wealth. And no 
wonder. For in this town the average public em- 
ployee or store worker considered himself fortunate 
indeed if he received from $40 to $50 per month, 
and the common peon did not average 50 cents a 
day the year round — worth half that in gold. 

Maria got her five dollars! 



And so passed the summer's idyll of an idle 
summer. 



120 SEEN IN A MEXICAN PLAZA 



THE LEAVE-TAKING 

My friend Don Martin was kind enough to say 
to me when we parted: "Sefior Semanas, I wish 
to tell you something. Every one of my fellow- 
countrymen for a hundred miles around Cuatro 
Cienegas knows you, and they all call you *EI 
Gringo.' They do not do this to show disrespect, 
but because you are the only stranger in the place, 
and your name is difficult for them to pronounce 
(they spoke it as if it were spelled Huiquis — in- 
deed some wrote it that way). So they content 
themselves by calling you as I have said. But every 
one in all this region likes you and is your friend, 
because you have treated them as if they were men." 

Incidentally, I may add that this is all any Mexi- 
can asks. 




Printed in the United States of America 



